The Perceptions of Academic Lawyers Concerning the Effects of the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise
| Author | Kevin Campbell,Andrew D. Murray,Douglas W. Vick,Gavin F. Little |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00102 |
In this article, the authors analyse quantitative and qualitative data
compiled from a large-scale postal survey of legal academics concerning
the United Kingdom’s Research Assessment Exercise. The purpose of the
study was to measure the attitudes of academic lawyers affected by the
RAE rating process and institutional responses to that process. The study
reveals that a substantial number of respondents lack faith in the objec-
tivity of the rating process, believe institutional responses to the RAE
have caused damage to academic working environments, and perceive that
the RAE has failed to improve the quality of legal research.
INTRODUCTION
The allocation of basic government funding for research conducted within
United Kingdom universities is determined by reference to periodic assess-
ments of research quality overseen jointly by the United Kingdom’s four
higher education funding bodies.1The results of the most recent Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) conducted in 1996 are being used to calculate
the dispersal of an annual budget of approximately £800 million among
various higher education institutions, with the highest-rated institutions
receiving the largest proportion of available funding, and the lowest-rated
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
* Department of Accounting, Finance and Law, University of Stirling, Stirling
FK9 4LA, Scotland
The Faculty of Management, University of Stirling Internal Research Fund provided financial
assistance to this study, which is duly acknowledged with gratitude. We would also like to
thank Lesley Swan and Lesley McIntosh for their invaluable support.
536
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1998
ISSN: 0263–323X, pp. 536–61
The Perceptions of Academic Lawyers Concerning the Effects
of the United Kingdom’s Research Assessment Exercise
DOUGLAS W. VICK, ANDREW D. MURRAY, GAVIN F. LITTLE,
KEVIN CAMPBELL*
1The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Higher
Education Funding Council (SHEFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
(HEFCW), and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland (DENI).
in danger of receiving no funding whatsoever.2The RAE ratings also affect
an institution’s ability to recruit and retain staff, are used by other govern-
mental and non-governmental sources of funding in evaluating grant propos-
als, and may influence the decisions of students choosing among available
postgraduate programmes.3
Despite the central role the RAE plays in academia, the basis for RAE
ratings remains rather mysterious. The funding councils have been repeat-
edly criticized for failing to make the criteria of assessment and the reasoning
processes of the assessors sufficiently clear.4This lack of clarity has encour-
aged a great deal of speculation and second-guessing by institutional
decision-makers wishing to impress assessment panels and maximize their
ratings. The policies arising out of this uncertainty can, in turn, have a signif-
icant impact on the day-to-day working conditions of United Kingdom
academics. This article reports key findings of a major empirical study
designed to discover how one segment of academia, those who teach and
research law, perceive the effects of institutional attitudes toward the RAE.
Data were compiled from a postal survey of legal academics conducted
between February and July 1998. Among other things, the questionnaire
asked how the RAE rating process was perceived within law faculties and
departments, how those perceptions have affected the working lives of those
surveyed, and how departmental attitudes toward the RAE have affected
the quality and nature of legal research in the United Kingdom. The views
of the survey respondents are reported below.
THE RESEARCH ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Before the first government efforts to systematically assess research quality
in the 1980s, 35 per cent of the money provided to universities was earmarked
for research regardless of whether any research was actually carried out.5
The freedom that a lack of accountability to the state allowed gave some
an opportunity to engage in ground-breaking work and others an ‘oppor-
tunity for indolence’.6In the 1980s, however, as part of the government’s
537
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
2See HEFCE Circular 4/97, Funding Method for Research from 1997–98 (1997); SHEFC
Circular Letter 08/98, SHEFC Main Grant Letter 1998–99 (1998); HEFCW Circular
W97/16HE, 1997/98 Grant (1997). 97 per cent of basic research funding is allocated as
‘quality-related’ research funding (QR). Departments that received RAE ratings of 1 or 2 in
the 1996 RAE receive no QR funding.
3See, for example, D. Oliver, ‘The Integration of Teaching and Research in the Law
Department’ (1996) 30 The Law Teacher 133.
4See I. McNay, The impact of the 1992 RAE on Institutional and Individual Behaviour in English
Higher Education: The evidence from a research project (1997) at para. 2.4; V. Nadin,
‘Widening the Gap between the Haves and Have Nots in Research Funding: The UK
Research Assessment Exercise’ (1997) 12 Planning Practice & Research 93.
5 R. Pring, ‘Editorial’ (1995) 42 Brit. J. of Educational Studies 121.
6 id.
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