Ranking of United Kingdom Law Journals: An Analysis of the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 Submissions and Results
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2006.00362.x |
| Author | Gavin Little,Alan Goodacre,Kevin Campbell |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 33, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2006
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 335±63
Ranking of United Kingdom Law Journals:
An Analysis of the Research Assessment Exercise 2001
Submissions and Results
Kevin Campbell,* Alan Goodacre,* and Gavin Little**
Notwithstanding the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement in
the 2006 Budget that, after the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise
(`RAE 2008'), it is the government's firm presumption that the system
for assessing research quality and allocating quality-related funding to
United Kingdom universities will be mainly metrics based, RAE 2008
is vitually certain to proceed and to have considerable significance for
legal research in the United Kingdom. In this rapidly developing and
controversial context, this paper uses statistical analysis of the data
from RAE 2001 to construct a series of metrics-based rankings which,
when taken together, provide a reliable and coherent ranking of
leading United Kingdom law journals.
INTRODUCTION
Since the establishment of the United Kingdom's Research Assessment
Exercise (`RAE') process in the 1980s, there has been considerable interest
in United Kingdom universities in determining which types of research
output are likely to be graded highly in periodic RAEs, thereby maximizing
335
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* Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Stirling, Stirling
FK9 4LA, Scotland
kevin.campbell@stir.ac.uk alan.goodacre@stir.ac.uk
** School of Law, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland
g.f.m.little@stir.ac.uk
We would like to thank Professor Fraser Davidson, Professor Elaine Sutherland, Profes-
sor Antony Duff, and Nicole Busby, all of the University of Stirling, for their comments
on an earlier draft. We are also grateful for the constructive and helpful comments of the
anonymous statistics referee. Any remaining errors are ours.
economic reward to universities and (indirectly) individual academics
through the higher education research funding system.
1
Law constituted one of the 68 discipline-based `units of assessment' in the
last RAE, which took place in 2001 (`RAE 2001'). Decisions on the relative
quality of the research submitted to the law unit of assessment in RAE 2001 were
made by the Law Panel, which consisted of nominated experts of high standing
in the field, who were appointed jointly by the four funding bodies.
2
The panel
graded departments,
3
comprising law schools or other groupings, after
consideration of up to four publications produced during the period of assess-
ment by each research-active member of staff who was submitted by their
institution.
4
These publications were taken to represent the standard of research
undertaken in the different departments, which were subsequently allocated to
one of seven grades, representing different levels of perceived research quality,
ranging through 1, 2, 3(a), 3(b), 4, 5 and 5*.
5
The amount of resources provided
by the funding bodies was determined according to the grade awarded by the
panel to each department, with a multiplier for the number of staff submitted. For
many United Kingdom law schools, the annual quality related (`QR') funding
generated from their RAE ranking forms a crucial component of their budget.
The sum allocated in 2005/06 to departments assessed by the Law Panel came to
nearly £30 million,
6
and, subject to indexing, annual payments of this amount
will be paid until the RAE 2001 funding period comes to an end, which, as
matters currently stand, is likely to be after the next RAE in 2008.
336
1 Approximately £1 billion per annum of research funding is allocated each year using
the results of the RAE. See, generally, Higher Education and Research Opportunities
in the UK (`HERO'), A Guide to the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, at:
www.hero.ac.uk/rae/Pubs/index.htm>. The issue of RAE `submission strategies',
which can be used to maximize economic benefits to universities, is discussed in A.
Talib and A. Steele, `The Research Assessment Exercise: Strategies and Trade-Offs'
(2000) 54 Higher Education Q. 68.
2 Details of its composition and the nominating bodies are set out at HERO, Research
Assessment Exercise 2001: Membership of Assessment Panels, RAE Circular 3/99, at:
for RAE 2001 were the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE); the
Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC); the Higher Education Funding
Council for Wales (HEFCW); and for Northern Ireland, the Department of Higher
and Further Education, Training and Employment (DHFETE).
3Or`academic units'.
4 HERO, op. cit., n. 1, p. 4.
5 The rating scale and descriptions are set out at id., p. 6.
6
I.E. Details of the 2005/06 payments can be found at HEFCE Grant Letter, Table G:
2005±06 Recurrent funds for research, at
SHEFC Grant Letter 2005/06, Table 1, para.7.3.2, at
06854fc203db2fbd000001028c4af9cb#main>; and HEFCW, Recurrent Grant Circular
2005/06, Annex B, at .
Information relating to funding for legal research in Northern Ireland was not
readily available from the Department of Education and Learning Northern Ireland,
but, in any case, it relates to only two institutions.
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