Assessment and Funding

The British Academy regularly contributes to formal consultations and public discussions about the principles and procedures for the assessment of research, and also for the funding of research. The following are examples of such contributions.

• A response from the British Academy to the Higher Education Funding Council for England's proposals for teaching funding and student numbers in 2012-13. (1 September 2011)
  The British Academy has responded to the consultation on teaching funding and student numbers in 2012-13 published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in June 2011.
  

• British Academy contribution to HEFCE on Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVS)
  The Academy has now responded to HEFCE’s request for input into its thinking on the next stage of its policy on Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVS).
  
  
• Response to HEFCE's Decisions on assessing research impact (3 March 2011)
  The British Academy reiterates the opinions it stated in its response to HEFCE's 2009 consultation on the Research Excellence Framework.

• Science and Research Consultation: Budget Allocations (2 November 2010)

  Sir Adam Roberts has replied to a letter from Professor Adrian Smith, with advice on the balance of funding for the Science and Research budget.

• Investing in excellence: The needs and contribution of the UK research base (16 July 2010)

  The British Academy has submitted advice to Professor Adrian Smith on the future of UK research in light of the Spending Review.

• Research Excellence Framework: The British Academy’s Contribution to HEFCE’s consultation (3 Dec 2009)
  In its contribution to HEFCE's Consultation on the Research Excellence Framework  (REF), the new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and successor to the the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the Academy calls for any measures taken to strengthen, not undermine, the UK's research infrastructure.

• Research Excellence Framework – Position Statement (Nov 2009)
  The UK Strategic Forum for the Social Sciences was established in 2001 to provide an arena in which the major issues and challenges facing the social sciences can be debated at the highest level and to ensure that the needs of the social sciences are addressed and tackled. At its meeting on 27 October 2009, the Forum discussed HEFCE’s consultation on the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which sets out proposals for new arrangements to assess and fund research in UK higher education institutions. This Position Statement sets out the general areas of principle on which there was broad consensus at that meeting.

• Setting Science and Technology Research Funding Priorities – A Submission from the British Academy to an Inquiry by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee (Oct 2009)
  In its evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry ‘Setting Science and Technology Research Funding Priorities’  the British Academy calls for government department policy makers to draw fully on all that the humanities and social sciences have to offer, to ensure that they have appropriate quality controls in place in their commissioning and evaluation processes, and for an appropriate balance between targeted and curiosity-driven research.

• Future Directions: A response to the AHRC consultation (May 2009)
  In its response to the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s current policy consultation, 'Future Directions', the British Academy has called for the Council to protect and maintain substantial support for responsive mode funding, in order to encourage new approaches. It calls on the Council to make the process of selecting topics for its strategic initiatives subject to wide consultation and peer review, and to ensure that there is an appropriate balance between strategic funding and responsive mode funding.

• Response to the questions posed by the HEFCE consultation on the Research Excellence Framework (February 2008)
  This document is the British Academy's response to the HEFCE consultation on the Research Excellence Framework, part of the planning for research assessment after 2008.

• Peer Review: The Challenges for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Sept 2007)
  This review addresses issues relating to the current practice of peer review both for the purpose of awarding research grants and for publication in journals. The Executive Summary and Recommendations are also available as a separate document.

• Response to the AHRC Review of Postgraduate Funding (Nov 2006)
  The British Academy, in a letter from Onora O'Neill, comments on  the findings of the AHRC's Review of Postgraduate Funding.

• Response to the DfES consultation on the reform of higher education research assessment and funding (Oct 2006)
  In this response, the Academy suggests that a lighter-touch system is more desirable than the RAE, post 2008, and that limited use of metrics could be useful in assessment but an approach which uses solely metrics will be damaging to the humanities and social sciences.