UGC RAE 1999

1. UGC RAE 1999

2. Guidance Notes • 22 Jan 1999 • on UGC Web

3. History • RAE1 1993 • RAE2 1996 • RAE3 1999

4. Immediate purpose • Funding = T + R But R is not everything ! • Public accountability • Induce improvements

5. Principles • Assess CC • Aggregate individuals • Based on output • Threshold measurement

6. New features 1. Broaden “research” 2. Emphasize not assessing individuals 3. Look for coherence: • institution • CC • individual

7. 1. Broaden definition • Discovery • Integration • Application • Teaching Carnegie Foundation: Scholarship Reconsidered (1990)

8. Discovery The scholarship of discovery, at its best, contributes not only to the stock of human knowledge but also to the intellectual climate of an institution. It is a scholarly investigation, closest to what is meant when academics speak of "research", that confronts the unknown and creates new knowledge.

9. Discovery(cont’d) Not just the outcomes, but the process, and especially the passion, give meaning to the effort.

10. Integration It is a serious, disciplined work that seeks to interpret, draw together and bring new insight to bear on original research. The scholarship is closely related to discovery. Such work is increasingly important as traditional disciplinary categories prove confining, forcing new topologies of knowledge.

11. Integration (cont’d) This scholarship also means interpretation, fitting one's own research -- or the research of others -- into larger intellectual patterns. A variety of scholarly trends -- interdisciplinary, interpretive, integrative, are examples of scholarship of integration.

12. Application It is a dynamic process of creating new intellectual understandings arising out of theory and practice. The term itself may be misleading if it suggests that knowledge is first "discovered" and then "applied". The process is in fact more dynamic; new intellectual understanding can arise out of vital interaction between theory and practice, and one renews the other.

13. Teaching It is a process that transforms and extends knowledge while transmitting an intelligible account of knowledge to the learners.

14. Distribution • Expect distribution of submissions to be reasonable given • nature of subject • role and mission (& strategy statement) • Scoring will be without regard to distribution

15. Research index p= 100% xA / T T = number of academic staff in a cost centre (who meet certain criteria) in fte A = the number among these judged to have reached or surpassed the quality threshold, including fractional counts

16. 2. De-emphasize individual • Will not use “active researcher” (AR) • “% of AR”  “research index” • Individual results will not be • kept • released • used More a matter of adopting less misleading nomneclature

17. 3. Look for coherence • Institution --- strategy statement • CC --- Table 1 • Individual submissions --- Table 3

18. Number who reach quality threshold 1. Submit 2. Assess

19. 1. Submit • Period of assessment • What to submit • Definition of output • Number of items • Co-authors

20. Period of assessment • 4 years • 1 Jan 95 --- 31 Dec 98

21. What to submit • up to 5 best research output items within the period of assessment, + • if considered appropriate, one exceptional research output item outside assessment period.

22. Output • innovation; AND • contribute to scholarship; AND • publicly accessible; AND • of interest to peers and generalizable. does not matter whether funded by the UGC

23. Specifically • any publication, patent, artifact, etc., • published or made publicly available within the assessment period; or • not yet published, but officially accepted in that period • other output: e.g. drama, concert performance, video tape, computer software, buildings, creative work that can be evaluated

24. Number of items • Quality, not quantity • May submit fewer than 5 • Can meet threshold on the basis of even one • In the majority of cases, a clear decision should be able to be made on the basis of 3

25. Co-authors • Individuals are proxies for the CC • Need to form a view on the CC's involvement • Not a multiplier; if judged to have made significant intellectual contribution, not pro-rated or discounted

26. 2. Assess • Panels • Quality threshold

27. Quality threshold • Quality of output equates to an attainable level of excellence appropriate to the discipline in Hong Kong, and showing some evidence of international excellence. • Then to give special recognition for societal relevance, symbiosis with industry, commerce and government, and/or with local culture and society.

28. Comparability • Each panel to translate general definition into more precise benchmarks • Strive for broad comparability across disciplines

29. Attainable • international excellence • international vs local

30. Holistic view • View submission as a whole, • Not score each item individually, not n/5. • Evaluate based on best 3

31. Quality • Judged on own merits • Not on venue / category / language

32. Results • No individually identifiable scores • Total score of CC to Head of the institution concerned • + sector-wide average and median (if not fewer than three institutions)

33. Rectifying misconceptions "UGC requires every individual academic to produce 5 international journal papers"