British Academy President Warns Of Risk Of “Unintelligent Accountability”

• Sir Adam Roberts elected as next British Academy President
• 49 outstanding scholars elected as British Academy Fellows

17 July 2008

Baroness Onora O’Neill, President of the British Academy, today called for caution in the use of metrics to assess University research departments, saying there was a risk that it could produce 'unintelligent forms of accountability'.

Speaking at the Academy’s Annual General Meeting, she reflected 'widespread concern in and beyond the Academy' over the possibility that metrics could replace expert judgment in future research assessment exercises, especially in humanities and social science disciplines.

Citing a British Academy policy study on Peer Review, published last September, she noted and endorsed its conclusions that metrics had 'a tendency to alter behaviour' and that they should only be used 'to augment rather than replace, expert judgment'.

Professor O'Neill also drew attention to two further British Academy policy studies. The first, chaired by Sir Alan Wilson and reporting in September, examines the impact that humanities and social science research has – and ought to have – on public policy,  the second, chaired by Dame Janet Nelson and reporting in 2009,   will assess the impact of the rapid decline of language learning, including its impact on research capacity and on the UK’s wider economic and cultural life.

The Annual General Meeting of Academy Fellows also elected Sir Adam Roberts KCMG FBA as its next President for a four-year term.  He will succeed Professor O'Neill in July 2009.
  
Sir Adam, formerly Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, was elected a Fellow of the Academy in 1990, said:

'I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed President-elect by the Fellows of the British Academy and look forward to taking up the position in a year's time. Thanks to the excellent work of the President, staff and Fellows, the Academy has today set its strategic priorities for the next five years covering the whole range of its activities – and has done so with admirable clarity and a minimum of jargon. I relish the challenge of leading the Academy in the years ahead.'

Sir Adam Roberts, 67, is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies in Oxford's Department of Politics and International Relations, and an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College.  His main teaching and research interests are in the fields of international security, international organisations, and international law (including the laws of war). He has also worked extensively on the role of civil resistance against dictatorial regimes and foreign rule, and on the history of thought about international relations.

Sir Adam served on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (2002-08) and is a member of the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board. In 2002, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George for services to the study and practice of international relations. His latest co-edited book, The UN Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (OUP), was launched last month at meetings in Oxford, London and New York.

The Academy’s Annual General Meeting approved a new Strategic Framework for the work of the Academy over the next five years. It articulates the Academy’s fundamental purpose as being 'to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value'.

The framework identifies four strategic priorities central to achieving this mission over the next five years:

• Advancing the humanities and social sciences by supporting research and scholarship at all levels
• Promoting these disciplines on international platforms, building   collaboration and creating opportunities for UK researchers overseas
• Increasing the scope and impact of communications and policy activity, and creating events and publications that communicate new research and encourage public debate
• Strengthening opportunities for Fellows to contribute their expertise to the intellectual life of the Academy and the country.

The Annual General Meeting – the Academy’s 106th – elected 38 new Fellows, in recognition of the excellence of their academic achievements. They include evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace (University College London), philosopher Roger Scruton (University of Oxford and Institute for the Psychological Sciences, Arlington, Virginia), Islamic art historian Robert Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh), contemporary China specialist Vivienne Shue (University of Oxford) and geographer Susan J Smith (Durham University).

The Academy also elected a further ten overseas scholars as Corresponding Fellows, including American philosopher and social commentator, Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago) and the cinema and film historian Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam).   

The epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot (University College London) was elected as an Honorary Fellow.

Welcoming the new Fellows into the Academy, Professor O’Neill said “Election to Fellowship is the principal way in which the Academy recognises outstanding scholarly achievement.  It comes as the culmination of a rigorous selection process in which each of the Academy's eighteen different academic sections is involved.

“This year we are pleased to welcome new Fellows from all of the disciplines represented in the Academy, displaying a variety of interests, from human rights law to church history, from Middle East archaeology to clinical psychology, and from Maori studies to the philosophy of science.”
An admissions ceremony will take place on 22 September 2008 where the President will welcome the new Fellows and invite them to add their names to the Academy’s historic roll, which includes the signatures of such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Kenneth Clark, John Maynard Keynes and Mortimer Wheeler.

The Academy also announced the winners of this year’s Medals and Prizes, awarded for outstanding work in various fields of the humanities and social sciences. This year’s winners include Paul Mellars, Professor of Pre-History and Human Evolution at the University of Cambridge who wins the Grahame Clarke Medal;  Dr Helen Small, a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford who is awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize;  and Philip Gossett, Professor of Music at the University of Chicago, who receives the 2008 Serena Medal.