British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
British Academy President warns of risk of ‘unintelligent accountability’
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 would produce “unintelligent forms of accountability”.
Speaking at the Academy’s Annual General Meeting, she reflected “widespread concern in and beyond the Academy” over the proposal to make greater use of metrics 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.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Published:
17 July 2008
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