Researchers in the UK are in the midst of a periodic Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which assesses how well the billions of pounds of government research funding have produced international quality research.  Nature News has the details.  In short, the government institutes a huge peer review of UK research, an effort that is costing 12 million pounds this time, more than twice the cost of the last RAE, conducted in 2001.  As a result of the skyrocketing costs, the UK government will institute a series of metrics (like citations) for the next assessment, scheduled for 2013.

While I think a peer review assessment would be more effective than less reliable metrics, I certainly understand the financial pressure.  Instituting something similar in the United States would be proportionately more expensive.  That said, the attempts at assessing federal research in the United States could benefit from a more systematic approach.  At the moment, the evaluations mandated by the Government Performance and Results Act do not seem to be as thorough as those conducted by the UK (or even those planned by the UK), and a stronger research assessment program would help defuse some arguments against various kinds of research – arguments like “what do we have to show for these billions of dollars?”