I arrived in Canberra expecting the proposed journal rankings to be the hot issue, closely followed by the “Excellence in Research for Australia” (ERA) initiative – offspring of the late and not-much-lamented Research Quality Framework (RQF). As it turned out, neither of these were preoccupations. Nevertheless it seems to me, wearing a trans-Tasman hat as I do, that we should look at the issues as having much in common. I mean New Zealand has laboured under a Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) since 2002, having now had two assessment rounds. and has recently been independently reviewed. What do we now know about such research quality assurance systems? A report by reviewer Dr Jonathan Adams recommends a number of changes, while Adams’s review of the UK system, the RAE, is available on the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) website and tells us interesting unintended outcomes such as that “a deleterious effect of the RAE has been to cause all institutions to focus on their research performance …whether or not this was a primary part of their underlying mission” (Adams report p. 27).
On the plane to Sydney and Canberra I read of the Bradley Review, and vice-chancellors talking of the need for Australian universities to specialise and merge. Canberra’s Professor Parker put it that “in the long term the number of universities needs to be cut from 40 to perhaps 20 or 30 to make the sector sustainable and give institutions the scale and clout to compete internationally”.
A shudder of déja vu. "Hard choices…a hard look…market forces. New Zealand higher education has been characterised by this type of language for some time, emanating from the Tertiary Education Commission. We are required to differentiate ourselves and meet regional needs: worthy goals I think we would all agree. We may not behave competitively? Tell that to the faculty deans and marketing staff! Tell that to the universities who use dubious tactics to manipulate the PBRF system and scrap over the top positions in the league tables.
