A new set of proposed reforms would change how £2 billion of government funding is allocated between universities, penalising those that fail to adequately promote diversity and inclusion. Such changes risk further politicising the higher education sector by incentivising conformity at the expense of academic freedom.
The reforms are part of a general overhaul of the research excellence framework (REF), which determines how public funding is divided among the nation’s universities. Under current assessment criteria, institutions and departments are ranked based on three weighted indicators: research output (60%), research impact (25%), and research environment (15%).
Under the proposed reforms, however, universities will also have to demonstrate how they are “robustly” combatting inequalities, fostering equity, and supporting greater diversity and inclusion. Specifically, they must document the share of black, Asian and mixed-race academics in their employment and present the “percentage of promotion success per underrepresented group”.
Moreover, universities are also required to provide “documented evidence” that leadership in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives is “appropriately recognised”, and that the “effectiveness” of such policies are being regularly monitored and assessed.
The current framework also makes some references to diversity and inclusion, but the updated version takes it to an entirely new level. The ‘research environment’ category is being replaced with a new, more inclusive ‘people, culture and environment’ category. This new category is not only broader in scope; it will have a greater influence on an institution’s final score, up from 10 to 25 per cent of the total. The additional 10 per cent will be appropriated from the ‘research output’ category. Research now counts for only half of the assessment, while the impact of that research and the ‘people, culture and environment’ of the university each get a quarter.
Although still only in a pilot-phase, the changes have already received criticism from academics. John Armstrong, a mathematician at King’s College London, told the Times that the reforms would have a “detrimental effect” on the quality of research produced by British universities.
“It is a terrible way of allocating funding and one that will fundamentally reduce the quality of work coming out of our leading research institutions,” Armstrong said, adding that he believed the changes to be a “clear attempt to take control of the research environment away from academics”.
Striking a similar note, Ian Pace from City University London said that the new criteria could shift focus from academic rigor to “ideological conformity”.
“The research excellence framework is really the only way to bring money into a department from research other than external grants,” Pace told the Times, adding that the updated weightings “will de-emphasise the research outputs of departments and put the focus instead on hitting arbitrary diversity targets, but not viewpoint diversity nor academic freedom”.
Indeed, reading through the assessment criteria for the REF, it is striking that academic freedom is not mentioned at all. To the extent that government funding bodies care about more than the immediate quality and quantity of the research being produced, they should focus on the intellectual environment at our universities.
Julius Grower, an associate professor of law at Oxford, described how the proposed reforms were causing “a great deal of angst among people who care about academic freedom and freedom of speech”.
“The fear is the REF is becoming a portal to promoting compliance with a range of EDI policies with highly contestable content”, he told the Times. “People are increasingly concerned that it is losing sight of what it is supposed to be doing: promoting the pursuit of scholarly excellence”.
Grower raises an important point. The government funds research at our universities to promote intellectual excellence and to protect the tradition of academic freedom. Yet, these reforms will likely have the opposite effect.
As income from overseas students continues to fall and cash-strapped institutions grow more reliant on their remaining sources of funding, it becomes increasingly rational for them to prioritise policies that are favoured by the REF. If placing a heavier emphasis on superficial diversity at an institution helps secure additional research funding, many universities may choose to do so, even if it is at the expense of diversity of scholarly opinion.
Rebecca Fairbairn, director of the REF, told the Times that the intention behind the new reforms “is not to be prescriptive or impose a new system”. Rather, she claims the aim is to “change the narrow focus of the current REF on published output to look across the system at how you promote excellence using a much wider set of indicators”.
Whether the intention is to be prescriptive or not is really beside the point. Well-meaning politicians and bureaucrats have managed to cause all sorts of havoc for centuries, and economists have been muttering about unintended consequences for nearly as long.
Nevertheless, there may be perfectly good reasons to update the REF assessment criteria and look beyond research output and impact. Some academics have argued that the focus on impact and environment has granted universities an undue influence over individual academics in prioritising certain projects instead of others.
Changing the REF to include some sort of measure for academic freedom and free speech might greatly benefit the higher education sector of this country. Incentivising protections for each academic’s research independence is certainly an idea worth discussing.
As such, Fairbairn’s wish to broaden the scope for assessment is not necessarily misguided. However, these particular changes most certainly are. Forcing universities to sort academics by ethnicity is not going to benefit anybody. Nor will documenting EDI initiatives strengthen the quality of research produced by UK universities. In fact, as mentioned above, it will likely do the opposite.
We strongly encourage the REF to let these proposed reforms expire within the pilot-phase and undertake a broader reconsideration of funding allocation. We need less focus on EDI and more focus on creating a vibrant, diverse intellectual environment within British higher education.