Premium
ASSESSING THE ASSESSMENT OR, THE RAE AND THE OPTIMAL ORGANIZATION OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
Author(s) -
La Manna Manfredi M. A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
scottish journal of political economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1467-9485
pISSN - 0036-9292
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9485.2008.00469.x
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , excellence , incentive , obstacle , research assessment exercise , quality (philosophy) , optimal allocation , economics , reliability (semiconductor) , path (computing) , operations research , management , marketing , management science , business , computer science , microeconomics , political science , higher education , engineering , economic growth , mathematics , mathematical optimization , philosophy , power (physics) , physics , programming language , epistemology , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , law
The UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is assessed as an incentive scheme affecting the allocation of research talent of varying ‘quality’ across departments. The ‘centres of excellence’ policy implicitly pursued through the RAE is an optimal allocation strategy only if all departments in all disciplines are of the generalist variety, i.e. each pursues a research path through all its stages. Conversely, the RAE‐induced research allocation minimizes efficiency if applied to specialist departments, when resources are concentrated on one specific research obstacle. It is argued that the RAE should not take the organization of University research as exogenous, but rather should encourage specialization. All results are obtained by applying to University research concepts and solutions borrowed from the mathematical theory of systems reliability.