Inspirational Impact 2 VICE-CHANCELLOR’S VIEW BIRMINGHAM GLOBAL
NEWS 1 172 buzz February/March 2018 Inspirational Impact 2 VICE-CHANCELLOR’S VIEW BIRMINGHAM GLOBAL Vice-Chancellor’s view Why bother with research impact? There As it happened, this was exactly the are, I suppose, two easy answers. The first month that my appointment as Chief is the simple rhetorical question: ‘who Executive of the Higher Education Funding wants to do research that has no impact?’ Council was announced. I therefore And if this does not work for you determined that my first priority was to Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir David Eastwood there is the hard reality that in REF 2021 save the RAE. The decision was reversed research impact will count for 25% of in the summer of 2006 and RAE 2008 supported now by a very substantial a unit’s, and thus an institution’s, score. went ahead. investment in professional services staff So the inescapable reality is that impact There were, however, important to support the identification, development, matters. It is, and it must be, an absolute consequences. The Treasury made it clear and crafting of impact case studies. priority. that it remained unconvinced that it was There still needs to be further work to The history of impact and the REF is both getting a sufficient return on the public identify the best impact case studies for interesting and revealing. Back in February investment in research and believed some units of assessment. Where we have 2006, the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that the higher education sector, and already identified outstanding candidates announced that the Research Assessment the Research Assessment Exercise, had for impact case studies, work is well Exercise would be abolished, and in future, not yet demonstrated convincingly the advanced to underpin those cases with all research funding would be driven by economic and social benefits of research.
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