With an interest in the impact agenda, an interesting story in Times Higher Education identifying some of the positives of it:
“Impact” has had a bad press from many working in higher education. To some, the intention to assess the impact of research is a crude infringement of researchers’ freedom to pursue truth, beauty and uncertainty, and as such is likely to corrupt and diminish the value of research. To others, it is yet another example of the sinister marketisation of higher education, where the “public” good is being sidelined in the headlong pursuit of “private” benefit.
However, now that the final panel guidance on the research excellence framework has been published, resistance seems to have melted away. An impact army has been mobilised in universities across the UK as people get to grips with the impact framework and begin to identify and draft their case studies ready for the submission deadline in 2013. In the process, do we risk moving seamlessly from a period of spirited resistance to one of slavish compliance with the new assessment regime?
Read full story.
