REF, public engagement and our own measures of excellence

This may be a misleading label for this blog but, if I had labeled it ‘miscellaneous’, you probably would not be reading it.

Last week, I attended the ‘Inside Government’ annual conference on Research and Development. Not surprisingly, most speakers talked about the next REF (now referred to as ‘REF2’ due to the uncertainty of its timing) and the Stern review.  Very shortly, HEFCE will launch a 14-week consultation on REF2.  This will include a number of events across the country and a 70-page consultation document with 40-odd questions.  One of the talks at the conference provided us with a flavour of what this might contain.  The issue of staff selection was the subject of much debate and dominated the Q&A session. The dominant position seems to be the removal of any institutional decisions on staff selected for submission.  David Sweeney stated very clearly that the default position will be to use the HESA staff categorization, unless the as a result of consultation the sector comes up with a better way which does not involve institutional judgment). He emphasised that universities need to ensure that staff have the right contracts and staff who are on R&T contracts should be doing both.  I could not agree more, and I believe that staff should undertake the activities contractually expected of them.  However, the assumption underpinning all this is that all research is the REF type of research.  This is simply wrong.  For many anchor universities like ours, research tackles many of the issues for our local, regional and national communities.  This is enormously valuable research, funded by external agencies, with good publication outputs leading to real change.  The REF is simply one element within the research ecosystem of a university.  For some universities, it may very well be the dominant element and, for others who see themselves as significant contributors to their local and regional landscape, REF is not a dominant element.  This does not mean that staff who do this type of research should not have research as part of their contract.

Time will tell what the final decision will be, but I do hope this point is shared by many and is taken on board.

Let me now move on to the topic of public engagement. Last week, I also attended the annual conference of National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE).  Public engagement as a key activity of universities has moved on quite significantly in the past decade and the fact that four VCs delivered plenaries at this 2-day event testifies to this.  The first day ended with an award ceremony celebrating excellence in public engagement.  There were a total of 180 submissions and a final short list of 18 awards under 6 categories.  I was immensely proud that our ‘Boingboing Youth Partnership’ was one of the finalists under the ‘Working in partnership’ category.  The poster looked great and it was nice to talk to our PhD student and a young volunteer who were there at the event.  At the end of the award ceremony, NCCPE announced the launch of the Sir Prof. David Watson award.  This international award, the first of its kind, will recognise achievements by community and university partners working together to build a healthier, just and sustainable community.  It has been set up in memory of Professor Watson, our former VC, who created the Brighton award-winning Community University Partnership Programme. A group of us were invited to attend a closed round table discussion on day two, mainly to discuss three key points.  How can public engagement move from good to great? What are the implications of Brexit on the role of experts in public life and does our approach to engaging with the public need to change as a result?  And finally, can we build the links between excellent engagement and excellent teaching?  There were some really good discussions on all these points and I look forward to the emerging report which will capture the views of this group.

Whilst there, I also learned of a new charter mark – the ‘Engage Watermark’. This is an award granted to institutions to recognize their commitment and strategic support for public engagement. The four award levels (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) relate to the different stages that an institution might reach in its support for public engagement.  The first such award was given to Queen Mary University of London who successfully achieved a gold award.  Over the next year at Brighton, we need to make sure that the excellent work we have done in public engagement is recognized and CUPP will be leading our application for this recognition.

Finally, our measure of excellence! This year, the AHRC sought central university co-ordination of applications for membership of the AHRC peer review college.  We have a number of staff who have served the maximum number of years possible and we currently have five existing members.  In this year’s call, we submitted 16 applications, all as members of the Academic College.  Additionally, we nominated three individuals as strategic reviewers, one as an international reviewer and one as a technical reviewer.   I was extremely pleased when we heard that all our nominations have been successful.  This is quite an achievement and a measure of the excellent quality of our academic staff.  With existing serving members, this means that, for AHRC alone, we have 21 academic staff who are members of their PRC.  Many congratulations to everyone and, in particular, to the successful ECRs!