Removing the blindfold after the game is over: the financial outcomes of the 1992 research assessment exercise

On preparing for more subjective judgements: RAE2008

“…This has the undoubted advantage of emphasising that institutions would be funded on the basis of their relative performance rather than absolute performance'. It would be interesting to know why the Funding Councils rejected this advice and opted for (ill-defined) absolute standards; one can only guess that it was because they didn't want to publish their funding formula beforehand: they haven't at previous RAEs, so that universities have been playing a game without knowing all of its rules (see Johnston 1993a and1993b). …”

Research Quality Assessment and Geography in Australia: Can Anything be Learned from the UK Experience?1

“…(Most panels will weight the outputs’ profile as at least 75 per cent of total.) The allocation of money will then be predicated on those profiles but, as in previous years, no prior indication will be given of the allocation formula: institutions and departments are playing games without knowing the full set of rules (on which see Johnston, 1993a, 1993b: Talib and Steele, 2000, discuss the strategies that universities and their departments have to play in the light of this relative ignorance).…”

The “Quality Industry” in British Higher Education and the AAG's Publications

“…The financial consequences of the gradings are now very substantial for universities because the formula for distributing the research component of universities' block recurrent grants is strongly influenced by the quality judgements (Johnston 1993a(Johnston , 1993b(Johnston , 1993c(Johnston , 1994. All of the money is distributed by formula in which the grade achieved is a dominant parameter and there is no base-line funding for departments whatever their gradegrade 1 departments get no research funding at all.…”