Evaluating 'impact' in the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF)
Liminality, Looseness and New Modalities of Scholarly Distinction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4097780 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Watermeyer (0000-0002-2365-3771, University of Bath, corresponding author), Judith Chubb (0000-0002-9716-820X, University of York) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 1554-1566 |
| Publication date | 2019-09-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Studies in Higher Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0307-5079 • E-ISSN: 1470-174X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03075079.2018.1455082 |
| OpenAlex | W2792297323 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 40 |
| References cited | 32 |
Little is known about the process of evaluating the economic and societal impact of research undertaken in university settings. In this paper, we explore the accounts of senior academics and user-assessors, populating disciplinary sub-panels spanning the humanities and social sciences, convened to judge and ‘score’ the impact claims of researchers from UK universities as a new component of research evaluation within the specific context of the UK’s performance-based research funding system (PBRFS), the Research Excellence Framework (REF). We perceive from their accounts the emergence of a new and liminal space in the production of scholarly ‘distinction’ that is unlike archetypal modalities of academic excellence. Analogously, we identify an emotional and intellectual vulnerability in the review process and the loosening of the structures reviewers traditionally call upon in making value-determinations that simultaneously facilitate their role as impact evaluators and create new modalities in scholarly distinction
Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Excellence · Higher education · Liminality · Modalities · Pedagogy · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Engineering · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · scientometrics and bibliometrics research
What Is the Research Impact of (The Ideal Of) Scientific Truth
Impact case studies
Hype and the manufacture of impact in REF submissions
Planning and resource allocation models in research‐intensive universities
Academic freedom, the impact agenda, and pressures to publish
Writing impact case studies
The crisis of peer review
Supported or stressed while being assessed? How motivational climates in UK University workplaces promote or inhibit researcher well‐being
Where does all the ‘ know how ’ go? The role of tacit knowledge in research impact
The changing nature of social media and research impact
The unseen disciplinary divide
Balancing research excellence and ‘Publish or Perish' in private Indian universities
Evaluation in design science
What is the societal impact of university research? A policy-oriented review to map approaches, identify monitoring methods and success factors
Societal impact of university research in the written press
How do museums and galleries help academics create societal impact? An analysis of the UK REF2021 impact case studies
Linking science with media and policy
Using art for public engagement
Out of the ivory tower
Stakeholder experiences of using online spatial data visualisation tools for local public health decision support
Contributing to the creative economy imaginary
Let’s agree to agree
Orientation work
Promotional Adjectives in Grant Proposal Abstracts
Impact Agenda and Practices of Inclusion and Reward for Early Career Researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Evaluating the effectiveness of university widening participation activities in rural Australia
The Impact of Impact
Knowledge Brokering Repertoires
Competitive accountability and the dispossession of academic identity
All power to the reviewers
The changing and challenging research landscape in South Africa
Tourism studies and the changing research ecosystem
Research assessment, emotional practices, and the social hierarchy
Institutional hierarchies and research impact
Researching the Everyday Educational Lives of Low-Income Families
Confronting the ‘Coming Crisis’ in Education Research
Societal Impact as ‘Rituals of Verification’ and The Co-Production of Knowledge
Governing by narratives
Academic identity at the intersection of global scientific communities and national science policies
The knowledge exchange framework
The sociology of science
The Impact of the Social Sciences
How Professors Think
The Metric Tide
Decline of Donnish Dominion
Performance-based university research funding systems
Social Limits to Growth
‘Impact’ in the proposals for the UK's Research Excellence Framework
The field of cultural production
Distinction
The laws of the markets
Academic Capitalism and the New Economy
The field of Cultural Production
Distinction
The Third Wave of Science Studies
Selling ‘impact’
Expressions of excellence and the assessment of applied and practice‐based research
Excellence’ and Exclusion
Gradgrinding the Social Sciences
Impact in the REF
Artifice or integrity in the marketization of research impact? Investigating the moral economy of (pathways to) impact statements within research funding proposals in the UK and Australia
Culture in Interaction
| Unique citing works | 40 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 38 |