Tagged / ref 2020

HE policy update w/e 27th January 2017

conferences, EU, Events, innovation, international, policy, Research Training, Student Engagement, Training

Industrial Strategy Green Paper

The Government launched the Industrial Strategy Green Paper and consultation this week. The paper focuses on improving Britain’s innovation and productivity in key areas alongside upskilling the workforce to become world leading. The government suggest a number of areas of industry specialism that should be supported:

  • clean energy
  • robotics
  • healthcare
  • space technology
  • quantum technology
  • advanced computing and communications

The document frequently references the role of Universities as innovation leaders pushing for commercialisation and greater productive cooperation with business. It states that the ‘neglect of technical education’ should be redressed and insinuates that higher-level technical education will be pushed towards the new Institutes of Technology (£170 government investment announced – see below). There is an emphasis on rebalancing the difference in Britain’s economic geography through infrastructure investment. In addition, it criticises how UK research funding is currently heavily invested in the ‘golden triangle’ (Oxford, Cambridge, London) and calls to build on research strengths in businesses as well as other universities. The strategy has a strong focus on STEM and Wonkhe have reported that The British Academy are urging the government not to forget investment in social sciences and humanities teaching and research, which they argue are vital to the continued development of the UK’s services sectors.

The consultation ends in April, we’ll be in touch shortly about how you can contribute to a BU response.

While the strategy has only just been launched it was preceded by the announcement of the new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (Nov 2016) and consultative workshops. The workshops aimed to ensure that the challenges identified match UK business capability and are based on the best available evidence for scientific and commercial success on the global stage. The challenges mirror the industry specialisms proposed in the green paper but also mention the creative industries and integrated cities. The workshops conclude this week, implementation plans are expected to follow from the government and the first challenge is expected to be announced in March.

In an interesting article in The Conversation Graham Galbraith, VC at Portsmouth, urges Universities to shun new institutions for innovation and instead form a network of hubs building on relationships with employers, skills organisations and FE colleges. Furthermore he resists the government’s distinction between academic and technical education, seeing the productivity answer through flexible routes to university study and developing skills courses that employers need in accessible ways. He believes the university sector would deliver this far more quickly than new Institutes of Technology. Galbraith also criticises REF 2021: “The government wants the UK to be better at commercialising its world-class, basic research. But the… require[ment]…to include all academic staff…will have the effect of making universities re-balance their staff’s priorities so that there is more focus only on peer-reviewed research and less on outward-facing activities like business collaborations.”

Brexit –The Supreme Court has ruled that Parliament must vote to trigger Article 50 which begins the Brexit process. The government timescale is to trigger Article 50 by end of March and to this end they have introduced a European Withdrawal Bill (EWB). The European Withdrawal Bill gives the PM the power to notify the European Council of the UK’s intention to withdrawn from the EU through the required Act of Parliament. It is being fast tracked through Parliament. Parliamentary time is scheduled for 31 Jan, 1 Feb, 6-8 Feb.  The House of Commons Education Select Committee continues visits to Universities (Oxford, UCL) to examine impact of Brexit on HE. At the UCL visit (Wednesday) Michael Arthur (Provost) broke the UCAS data embargo revealing a 7% drop in EU applicants in the current cycle. The Guardian leads with ‘first decrease after almost a decade of unbroken growth blamed on… Brexit’. Committee Chair, Neil Carmichael is reported on Twitter as asking whether HE needs a sector-specific Brexit deal – panel response ‘yes absolutely!’

Higher Education and Research Bill (HERB) – The Lords continue to scrutinise the HERB carefully with the long list of amendments.  The list has stopped growing quite so quickly but new amendments proposed this week include one to set up a new UKRI visa department that will sponsor academics (507ZA). So far apart form the first one, no amendments other than government amendments have been passed, but the level of debate and the length of the list suggests that there may have to be some concessions by the government. James Younger, the government lead on the Bill in the Lords, wrote to Peers on 25th January about the bill.

Given the timing of the Brexit discussions, Wonkhe speculate that to achieve the timescales for the Bill and to clear sufficient parliamentary time for the European Withdrawal Bill to be passed the government may make concessions on HERB.  Key discussions this week:

  • NSS statistically unfit for TEF – Lord Lipsey discussed the statistical inadequacies of NSS and the implication for this as a TEF metric. “The NSS in the TEF is using—or rather, abusing—statistics for a purpose for which the NSS was never designed.” Lipsey acknowledged that the Government have gently retreated from the emphasis on NSS scores – in their latest instructions to assessors they stated: “assessors should be careful not to overweight information coming from the NSS“. This was reinforced by Chris Husbands, Chair of TEF, who informed a meeting at the House of Commons this week that his team would “not be overweighting the NSS” when awarding ratings this year.  The proposed amendment was withdrawn after Viscount Younger: stressed the NSS was not the primary source of information for the TEF and that the framework was about much more than metrics. “Providers submit additional evidence alongside their metrics, and this evidence will be given significant weight by the panel”. HE continued: “we cannot ignore the only credible, widely used metrics that captures students’ views”.
  • There were also debates about the gold/silver/bronze ratings and the government provided reassurance that Bronze was “above a high quality baseline”. This contradicts statements made by some in DfE before the final specification was agreed about Bronze institutions “needing improvement”. The panel have praised positive communication on this subject.
  • Validation – The government have issued a factsheet for the Lords on Validation which provides explanation from the perspective of an alternative provider seeking to enter a validation arrangement. It describes Clause 46 of HERB, which gives the Office for Students (OfS) power to commission authorised HE providers to provide validation if other providers decline. It states such authorised providers are free to choose whether they wish offer this service, however once an arrangement is in place the OfS could require them to validate award) delivered by other registered HE providers. The commissioned arrangement would be made public.  The controversial Clause 47 which appoints OfS as the validator of last resort was also discussed. The controversy arises as OfS isn’t an academic institution and doesn’t hold Degree Awarding Powers. The OfS will advise the Secretary of State (SoS) if intervention is required (likely through an evidence based report and stakeholder consultation) and the SoS would then authorise the intervention through regulation which is subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
  • Contract Cheating – The amendment proposed by Lord Storey on contract cheating was withdrawn following Government reassurance. Lord Storey provided a passionate discourse including detailed sector information and cheating statistics. Baroness Goldie confirmed that the Government were addressing cheating referencing the (Aug 2016 published) QAA investigation and Jo Johnson’s commitment to close working to progress the recommendations. She revealed that the Minster would shortly announce a new initiative to tackle cheating in conjunction with QAA, Universities UK, NUS and HEFCE.

TEF

The 15 page written submissions for year 2 of the TEF were finalised and submitted this week, and this was the final opportunity for institutions to opt out of the TEF. Although there may have been others who have not published their positions, most Scottish Universities have opted out, as well as the Open University. Given the difference in the Scottish funding system they have less to gain from the TEF – but the 4 who have opted in have noted international reputation as a crucial factor. The OU explain their non-participation is due to the poor fit of the metrics with their social mobility demographic.

And the future of the TEF? According to Research Professional, a German academic has criticised the way that teaching excellence funding is being used in Germany.

“Whereas lower-ranked universities have tended to spread their funding from the programme thinly across faculties and courses, higher-ranked institutions have had the luxury of being able to focus on priority areas, the analysis found.

“You are starting to see emerging differences between disciplines taught at different universities,” Bloch told Times Higher Education on 17 January. For the first time, elite universities are starting to build up strong institutional identities when it comes to teaching, in an effort to get further ahead.

“It will be a long time before we reach the stratification that you see in the American system [around teaching], but we are seeing a difference for the first time in how resources in teaching are distributed,” he said.

UCAS 2016 entrants report – this data includes applications, offers and placed rates by sex, area background (LPN-polar 3), and ethnicity. BU’s report can be selected from the drop down menu towards the end of the webpage. The Guardian reports on the lower offer rates to black applicants. Wonkhe covers the HEIs that have a significant upward or downward trend in acceptances

Research Impact training: Parliament are running a Research, Impact and the UK Parliament event in Bristol on Wednesday 1 March. It covers the basics of the Parliamentary process and how academics can engage with parliament through their knowledge and research to inform scrutiny and legislation, including the impact of influencing policy to support REF submissions.

FHSS seminar Prof McKie

BU research, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Training, Women's Academic Network, writing

linda-mckie-2016Prof. Linda McKie who is professor of Sociology at Durham University gave an excellent paper today in FHSS on Revitalising Spatial and Temporal Frameworks in the Analysis of Unpaid Care and Paid Work.  Her paper highlighted that published data have documented the persistence of the gender pay gap for all women with evidence of a deepening gap following maternity leave. These data generated numerous analyses on segregation and discrimination in education and working life and the many ways in which unpaid care for children, family members and elders remains a dominant factor in everyday gendered inequalities. Often little comment was made on women’s crucial role in reproducing generations many of whom will fund future pensions and services through their taxation. These intergenerational reciprocities are generally ignored in favour of the immediate time considerations for employers, workers and families with the need to generate profit, or income and resources for household or business survival.

In her seminar Prof. McKie revisited the analytical frameworks of ‘caringscapes’ and ‘carescapes’. In earlier work, it was asserted that both offer analytical potential to enhance analyses of the temporal and spatial dynamics of caring and working over the lifecourse in different places. Caring, critical to human flourishing and evident in many aspects of women’s lives, is captured in ‘caringscapes’. The framework of ‘carescapes’ explores the relationship between policies and services as determined by employers, the state and capital. Both frameworks are informed by feminist theorising and spatial and temporal perspectives on identifying and analysing how women perceive, engage with, and reflect on, the demands and pleasures of combining informal caring and paid work. ref-world

Yesterday Prof. McKie led a well-attended workshop for FHSS staff on preparing for the REF.  She offered insight into various REF processes as well advise on strategic planning and the importance of networking.   Prof. McKie has been a sub-panel member of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF) Sub-panel 23: Sociology for the period 2010-2014.

 

Prof.  Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

REF review to be led by Lord Stern of Brentford

Research assessment

Lord SternSummary from press release:

The HE green paper (Fulfilling our potential: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice) and the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, both released in November 2015, mentioned that there would be a review UK research funding and the REF as a mechanism for allocating funding. Further information about this review was released on 16 December 2015 in a press release from Jo Johnson, Universities and Science Minister (Government launches review to improve university research funding). The aim of the review is to reduce the burden and cost to universities and government that has become associated with preparing for, and submitting to, the REF, therefore ensuring the government gets the most return for its investment.

The review will be chaired by the President of the British Academy and former World Bank Chief Economist Lord Nicholas Stern. He will be assisted by a high-level steering group of academic experts, including the Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, Professor Julia King, and the Past President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Sir John Tooke.

Lord Stern commented: “Research assessment should not unwittingly introduce incentives for perverse behaviour, nor should it be overly burdensome. Excellence, properly defined, must remain the central basis for allocating support and funding for research. We will explore ways in which a simpler, lighter-touch, system for the REF might be developed.”

ref-logoThe review aims to:

1. Investigate different approaches to the evaluation of UK higher education research performance which can encourage and strengthen the emphasis on delivering excellent research and impact, while simplifying and reducing the administrative burden on the HE sector.

2. Draw on the evidence from the evaluation of REF2014 and consider other models of research performance assessment, which could provide robust means of informing future research funding allocations.
3. Provide options for future iterations of the REF focusing on a simpler, lighter-touch method of research assessment, that more effectively uses data and metrics while retaining the benefits of peer review. The review should ensure that a future process identifies and supports excellent research across the UK, including dynamic changes in research quality and emerging areas of research excellence, retains the frequency of approach of the current REF arrangements (at 5-6 year cycle) and secures the confidence of the HE/academic sector.

The full terms of reference for the review, including membership of the steering group, are available here: REF review terms of reference.

The outcome is due to be delivered in summer 2016.

 

Comments from the sector:

russell group logoUnsurprisingly many of the criticisms of the review have focused on the membership of the nine-member steering committee which includes seven academics and vice-chancellors from UK universities, all but one from members of the Russell Group. There are also no representatives from Wales, Northern Ireland or the funding councils and only one university in Scotland. Lord Stern defended the committee membership, saying he had looked for panel members from a “range of subjects” and for “people who are outstanding”. “Outstanding people are necessary to recognise excellence,” he said. “They are of the highest intellectual quality” and had experience in “running things”. The panel was not meant to be “a parliament of universities”, he said, but added that “we want to hear from everybody” about the future of the REF.

There have also been murmurings that the REF already offers a good return on investment, with costs estimated to only be 2.4% of the total funds its results will inform. If this is the case then is it even posible or desirable to reduce costs further?

The THE labelled Lord Stern as a ‘REF sceptic’, quoting a joint letter he wrote with Sir Paul Nurse in which he asked: “Have criteria of quality become too narrow and formulaic in some subjects? Are researchers feeling pressured to adopt short-term horizons and a narrow focus, and chasing publication rather than following their own judgements on which are the most fruitful avenues for research and most likely to yield major outcomes?” He also questioned whether the impact element of the REF was “insufficiently deep and broad”. The letter added: “is the REF incentivisation of universities to hire stars in the closing months, like an imminent transfer deadline in the Premier League, really a way to build a long-term scholarly department?”.

The suggestion of a more metrics-based approach is concerning, especially taking into account the recommendations in the Metric Tide report (July 2015) that concluded that metrics are not yet sufficiently robust to replace peer review or to be relied upon any more than they were in REF 2014.

Lord Stern defended the review, saying there was no “foregone conclusion” about the results, despite the HE green paper and CSR presuming it would lead to changes to the REF system. Dr Wendy Piatt, Director General of the Russell Group said that the Russell Group was supportive of the review but would be concerned if it resulted in any dilution of the REF’s rigour and international reputation.

 

Further reading:

THE – Lord Stern review: no ‘foregone conclusions’ about future of REF, 22 December 2015

THE – REF sceptic to lead review into research assessment, 16 December 2015

Russell Group – Stern review of research funding, 16 December 2015

Times – Prove research is useful or lose funds, universities are told, 16 December 2015

University Alliance – University Alliance responds to the announcement of Stern Review of university research funding, 16 December 2015

Open Access Highlights from BURO – December 2015

Uncategorized

There has been a massive 269% increase in deposited files for journal articles in January to November 2015 compared with the same period in 2014.

The Mock REF will have accelerated this depositing but we hope that, with the HEFCE deadline of April 2016 fast approaching, researchers will upload their accepted files to BRIAN (for BURO) as soon as they receive the publisher’s email advising them of acceptance.

BU researchers-article deposits: 1 January- 30 November 2015
ARTICLES.DEPOSITS1JAN-30NOV 2015

BU researchers-article deposits: 1 January- 30 November 2014
ARTICLES DEPOSITS 1JAN-30NOV 2014

The Faculty of Science & Technology (SciTech) has been particularly good at uploading files. Witness the increase of 244% on same period last year.

SciTech researchers- all deposits: 1 January – 30 November 2015
SCITECH ALL ITEMS 1JAN-30NOV.V1

SciTech researchers- all deposits: 1 January – 30 November 2014
SCITECH ALL EPOSITS 1JAN2014-30NOV2014.V1

To be eligible for submission in the next REF, journal articles and conference proceedings (with ISSN) accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 must be made open access.
In practice, this means the outputs must be deposited in an institutional repository (BURO) or subject repository within a three-month period from the point of acceptance for publication.
Depositing your manuscript in BRIAN, as soon as it is accepted, ensures that it will be eligible for submission to the next REF. This may mean that manuscripts need to be put online before they are formally published. Items under publisher embargo in BURO are still REF compliant.

We need to maintain the momentum!
So REMEMBER
As soon as you receive the email informing you that your output has been accepted for publication, upload the file to BRIAN.

See our guide Open access and depositing your research

Any queries about depositing please contact the BURO team.

Working towards research impact in Nepal

BU research, Featured academics, Knowledge Transfer, Research assessment, Research news

BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health has a long history of working Nepal.  Last month (January 7th) BU’s partner Green Tara Nepal led the dissemination of the findings of our evaluation of key health promotion initiatives in Nepal. The evaluation was conducted in collaboration with the Government of Nepal, Green Tara Trust, a UK-based charity, several national and international non-governmental organisations and three UK universities, namely Liverpool John Moores University, Bournemouth University and the University of Sheffield. The evaluation identified key government, bilateral, UN agencies national and international non-governmental organisations working in health promotion in Nepal. Their health promotion activities and approaches were documented and gaps were identified.

As a follow up to both the evaluation and dissemination event we were asked by the journal Public Health Perspectives to write an editorial on our work.1  Our editorial ‘Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal’ highlights the research we conducted and the state of health promotion we uncovered.  We also used our editorial to explain the UK notion of impact as formalised in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF).  To explain to our non-academic readers the REF is a nation-wide system to assess the quality academic research in all academic disciplines. 2-4  One key part of the REF is measuring the ‘impact’ that a UK university has on society and/or the economy.  This REF requires UK universities to write and submit a number of case studies that show societal impact.5   The dissemination of the health promotion research in Nepal is the beginning of a REF impact case study for Bournemouth University and our UK partner Liverpool John Moores University.  The editorial is a further stepping stone in the dissemination especially since it was co-authored between UK academics, health promotion practitioners as well as a member of the Constitutional Assembly (the Nepali equivalent of Parliament).   Working with policy-makers at an early stage increases the chances of our research being incorporated in national policy-making in Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Sharma, A, Tuladhar, G., Dhungel, A., Padmadharini, van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2015) Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal, Public Health Perpective 5(2): http://phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=941#.VO4Qvn9tXkd
  2. Parker, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2012) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): Assessing the impact of Social Work research on society, Practice: Social Work in Action 24(1): 41-52.  http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/20511/2/REF%20paper%20JPEvT.pdf
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Alexander, J., Marchant, S. (2011) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): new developments to assess research in higher education institutions and its impact on society. MIDIRS 21 (3): 298-301.
  4. Hartwell, H., van Teijlingen, E., Parker, J. (2013) Nutrition; Effects of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Nutrition & Food Science 43 (1): 74-77.
  5. Research Councils UK (2015)  RCUK Review of Pathways to Impact: Summary http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

 

REF 2020 update

Research assessment

In approximately 7 weeks we will know the outcome of the REF 2014 exercise. It is hard to believe that it is almost a year since we submitted to the exercise and that the results are round the corner. Whilst the expert panels have been assessing the submissions this past year, HEFCE have been working hard to design and shape the post-2014 REF, currently being referred to as REF 2020. They are currently midway through a review of the role of metrics in research assessment to ascertain the extent to which metrics could be used in the assessment and management of research. They have commissioned RAND Europe to undertake an assessment of the impact element of REF 2014, part of which will include recommendations to the assessment of impact in future REF exercises. They are currently consulting on whether an international REF exercise, rather than a national one, is the way forward. And, arguably the most important announcement to date, they have confirmed their open access policy for the next REF which stipulates that in order to be eligible for submission to the next REF from April 2016 all journal papers and conference proceedings have to be made freely available in an institutional and/or subject repository at the time of acceptance. Outputs not made freely available in a repository at the time of acceptance after April 2016 will be exempt from inclusion.

The Research Blog’s REF pages have recently been updated and you can read more of what we know about REF 2020 here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/ref/

As soon as we know more we will post it on the Blog. Until then we wait with anticipation for the REF 2014 results!

Open access and the post-2014 REF – consultation open

Research assessment, Research news

HEFCE, on behalf of the four funding councils, has launched a formal consultation on open access in the post-2014 REF (likely to be REF 2020).  The deadline for responses is 30th October 2013 and BU will be submitting an institutional response that reflects the views of the majority of staff.

To facilitate the production of the institutional response the Deans of Schools have been invited to each submit a School-based response taking into account the views of academic colleagues.  It is of paramount importance that academic and research staff engage with this consultation because:

  1. The proposals would significantly change how academics record outputs and add full-text publications to BRIAN/BURO in future.
  2. Some of the proposals are discipline-based and/or have the potential to affect disciplines differently.

 

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceOverview of proposals

The funding bodies propose the following criteria for open access:

  • Outputs should be accessible through a UK higher education institution (HEI) repository, immediately upon either acceptance or publication, though the repository may provide access in a way that respects agreed embargo periods.
  • Outputs should be made available as the final peer-reviewed text, though not necessarily identical to the publisher’s edited and formatted version.
  • Outputs should be presented in a form allowing the reader to search for and re-use content (including by download and for text-mining), both manually and using automated tools, provided such re-use is subject to proper attribution under appropriate licensing.

We propose that outputs fulfilling the following definition must meet these criteria to be eligible for submission to the post-2014 REF:

  • The output is a journal article or conference proceeding.
  • The output is published after a two-year notice period (from 2016 onwards).
  • The output lists a UK HEI in the ‘address’ field.

We are seeking views on which of the following approaches to exceptions would be most appropriate:

  • universal compliance of outputs meeting the definition, with exceptions on a case-by-case basis
  • a specified percentage for compliance. 

The full consultation document can be accessed here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/rinfrastruct/openaccess/

The consultation refers to the RCUK Policy on Open Access which can be accessed here: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/outputs.aspx

 

How to contribute

To contribute to the consultation please send your comments using this form (consultation template) to your School contact by 11th October as follows:

ApSci – Prof Jim Roach

BS – Prof Roger Palmer

DEC – Prof Jim Roach

HSC – Prof Gail Thomas

MS – Stephen Jukes

ST – Prof Adele Ladkin (on behalf of Prof Keith Wilkes)

 

Timeline

Early October      Launch consultation internally

11th October       All individual feedback to be sent to the Deans

18th October       Each Deans to send a School response to Julie Northam

23rd October       Julie Northam to send a draft institutional response to URKEC and Deans

28th October       All final feedback to be sent to Julie Northam

30th October       Deadline for submitting final institutional response to HEFCE

Early 2014            HEFCE to announce final plans regarding open access and REF 2020