Earlier this week the U.K. Higher Education Funding Council released its funding allocations based – in part – on performance of U.K. universities in the periodic Research Assessment Exercise.  I wrote about the RAE earlier this year, and rumblings that various top-tier universities were frustrated by the outcomes. Unlike the funding structures in the United States, government research funding in the U.K. is awarded directly to institutions via the Research Councils.  Performance on the RAE matters, as well as an algorithm (all the better to crowd out expert judgment), and government priorities for specific research fields.

Reading this analysis from Times Higher Education, and a snapshot of affected universities (H/T ScienceInsider) suggests a few reminders with the whole process of government support of universities (and of research).

Research excellence doesn’t always mesh with government priorities. Like in the U.S., the U.K. government focuses its support on certain disciplines.  However, when allocations are made from government to universities, rather than from government to funding agencies, the disconnect between research excellence in a field and government support of that field is heightened.  So I can certainly understand if humanities and social science researchers in the U.K. are more frustrated then their American counterparts.  Likewise, science intensive institutions that lost out with this allotment are feeling some kind of cognitive dissonance, as they see the cuts as abandoning priority research.

Higher education isn’t all about research. The decision to award so-called “pockets of excellence” in teaching-intensive universities can easily be seen as a way to lowering the bar for research quality.  It’s a argument that assumes that research can only be conducted in research-intensive places, and that higher education support is best spent supporting those institutions.  But a desired outcome of higher education is education, and allowing teaching institutions to supplement their work with quality research experience is a reasonable goal for governments to support.   It’s not just about whether the researchers being trained are top-drawer; it’s also about how well educated every graduate is.

Now there are certainly difficulties with the RAE.  Universities can self-select which faculty are evaluated, and there are no doubt other ways to game the system.  An algorithm for funding allotments was likely devised to minimize the potential for bias, but it also removes the capacity for judgment calls.  And any decisions that favor results in the face of reputation will be subject to assault.  I still respect the effort put into the exercise, as it’s something the U.S. has been stumbling with for a long time.