Academics in the UK

[the_lady_lily]

"We request the reversal of the Research Councils and HEFCE policy to direct funds to projects whose outcomes are determined to have a significant ‘impact’. The arts and humanities do have such an impact, but it is typically difficult if not impossible to judge this in the short-term. Academic excellence is the best predictor of impact in the longer term, and it is on academic excellence alone that research should be judged. ‘Users’ who are not academic experts are not fit to judge the academic excellence of research any more than employers are fit to mark student essays. The UK is renowned for its creative industries. But the roots of creativity in the intellectual life of the nation need sustained support and evaluations based on short-term impact will lead to less impact in the long-term. We also request the abandonment of plans to merge subject panels based on spurious claims of disciplinary and methodological similarities. Merging panels in most cases would undermine both methodological integrity and disciplinary identities and undermine the world class research that the UK currently produces."

Please follow the link if you would like to sign the petition.

Thanks to purple_pen for pointing this one out. For classicists who aren't aware of the proposed panel mergers, they're suggesting that Classics and Ancient History should be merged into 'History, Classics and Archaeology'. Which I am trying very hard not to be very, very rude about.

If you are feeling sufficiently moved, you could also write to your MP about it.

Comments

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Signed.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Done.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[med_cat]

Darn! Can't sign the petition as I'm not a British resident :(

But my goodness! Sounds rather like what my alma mater attempted to do some years ago...they intended to eliminate the Ancient Studies Dept.!

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

If only it was just an institution rather than the British government... but yes. Far from ideal.

[med_cat]

I know...:( Our institution's plan did not succeed, thankfully, due to the (very loud) protests by all 5 faculty members of the Ancient Studies dept!

Off topic--if you like poetry, come visit my LJ some time :)

Best wishes,
Cat

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, do you mind the History, Classics and Archaeology being classified together for the HEA subject centre, too? Or is that a different type of thing?

(Not signing myself as I don't consider myself an academic!)

(Edited to finish sentences! Damn Friday evenings!)

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Well, I've always thought it's A Bit Weird, tbh, but I can see the point in that the teaching skills used across the board and the teaching excellence stuff are probably transferable across the subjects. I think my worry is that on a board like that, historians would be in the majority, and asking people with a specialism in Victorian Germany to think about Athens is... well... a bit less rigorously sound. I've also noticed that the HEA subject centre seems to be quite good at actually making a difference in what they put out for classicists vs what they put out for the other two fields, so they can target all their audiences quite well - and, again, I don't feel that lumping them all together in the research assessment exercise serves the purpose of the exercise at all.

If that makes sense...