Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-41)
PROFESSOR PHILIP
ESLER
28 FEBRUARY 2007
Q40 Dr Iddon: So I have that wrong;
you are moving in line with the other Research Councils.
Professor Esler: Yes. We are moving
in line with the other seven.
Q41 Mr Flello: I want to return to
the issue of Research Assessment Exercise and ask what discussions
you have had with HEFCE and DfES regarding the changes to the
RAE and what is your view of that?
Professor Esler: We have not had
a discussion with DfES; we have been working with HEFCE. When
the Next Steps document appeared we saw that as an opportunity
to exercise our role of advocating arts and humanities research.
We approached HEFCE to create a joint working group of 10 excellent
scholars—one of them international—to generate over
a short period of time (so it was a very intense process), using
a lot of evidence and consultation a new approach. What that group
produced—which is something that I personally favour although
I do not think the Council as such has voted on it—was a
new model which is essentially an RAE which would comprise 50%
light touch reform peer review and 50% of a variety of metrics
which pick out the vibrancy and depth of a research environment
in any particular institution, including knowledge transfer. I
personally think that is a tremendous step forward and interestingly,
although some of the colleagues in arts and humanities were worried
about this when it was first announced, I think when they saw
the final product they were actually pretty happy. Indeed, some
of the other Research Councils have said—some of them in
public—that that would be rather good for them too. In fact
the light touch peer review would be good in most people's estimation
and the metrics that are going to be looked at are really generic
across any research environment. We were very happy with that.
I have spoken to David Eastwood about this and his position is
that they cannot really begin to develop the new model until the
2008 RAE is completed. He has told me and he has said publicly
that they will begin work in 2009 on the new model. We have offered
to help them in that and he seems to be happy to accept our help
so that is an exciting new possibility opening up.
Chairman: Professor Philip Esler, thank
you very, very much indeed for sharing your thoughts with us this
morning, it is very much appreciated.
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