The changing research landscape and reflections on national research assessment in the future

Abstract

Table ES.1: Distribution of respondents participating in the survey by discipline and career stage Discipline 1 Number of respondents Career stage 2 Number of respondents Medicine, health and life sciences 1,409 PhD Student 896 Physical sciences, engineering and mathematics 955 Early-career researcher 1,045 Social sciences 664 Mid-career researcher 804 Arts and humanities 582 Established researcher 955 Interdisciplinary 126 Retired or emeritus researcher 47 Unknown 32 Unknown 21 1 We used REF 2021 units of assessment (UOAs) and main panels as a proxy for disciplines by which to interrogate the analysis. Main Panel A: medicine, health and life sciences; Main Panel B: physical sciences, engineering and mathematics; Main Panel C: social sciences; and Main Panel D: arts and humanities. Respondents were assigned to a main panel based on the main UoA they reported that represented them. They are classified as interdisciplinary if they selected two main UoAs that spanned multiple main panels. 'Unknown' indicates that the respondent did not fill in this question. 2 Career stage was self-reported. 'Unknown' indicates that the respondent did not fill in this question.

The challenge of institutionalised complicity: Researching the pharmaceutical industry in the era of impact and engagement

“…In 2018, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) was created by the merger of Innovate UK and the long‐established and more academically oriented research councils into a single unified structure that subordinated the ESRC to a broader mission of research excellence, collaboration and knowledge exchange to strengthen the UK economy. There is evidence that these policy and institutional changes have significantly altered the incentive structure in UK academia with greater emphasis and value attached to research impact (Grove, 2017; Parks et al., 2019). This growing pressure to engage with stakeholders, including powerful and dominant groups, risks institutionalising different forms of complicity.…”

Evaluation capacity building in response to the agricultural research impact agenda: Emerging insights from Ireland, Catalonia (Spain), New Zealand, and Uruguay

“…was undertaken the four "As" have been extended byParks et al (2019) to include acclaim (comparing and recognising the value of higher education institutions and the research conducted within them) and adaptation (to steer change in organisational structures, behaviours and cultures, and research activities and priorities). Future research should consider the evaluative capacities needed to support evaluation for acclaim and adaptation.…”

Are We Conditioning EBM Researchers to be Innovative or Narrow?

“…Few publication houses balance their outputs, and knowledge clustering is increasingly based upon specific topics using increasingly sophisticated statistical methods. 3 This means, while publication houses may no longer be displaying traditional bias for findings which reject the null hypothesis, they continue to provide an imbalanced perspective by favouring certain research methods. Preferential publication, as described here, is stimulating researchers to design projects based on meta-analytical techniques rather than on questions which may require interdisciplinary or mixed-methods approaches.…”