As the RAE has progressively sharpened the criteria for research selectivity and excellence, and
the associated financial rewards to institutions, so the latter have sought to optimise their prospects of
success. Over time, the average scores have improved substantially, so it can be argued that numerous
individuals, departments (units of assessment) and institutions have succeeded. However, since the
financial resources available have not increased in line with that shift in performance, the net effect
has been to skew the reward progressively toward the highest level of achievement, as judged by
panels of peers.
As well as financial consequences for institutions, these developments have had significant
consequences from a human resource point of view, including:
• the need to retain, promote and reward research stars;
• the need to recruit productive researchers, with potential distortion of the balance of
recruitment criteria;
• the decision to omit some staff from RAE returns, with related issues of motivation and
adjustment of balance of duties and roles, and even titles and contracts;
• the danger that cumulative effects of these strategies might be to send a signal, intentional or
otherwise, that performance in research is the major, even the only issue; with the
consequent danger that research within the sector can challenge the importance of other
duties, roles and functions, especially teaching, service and good academic citizenship;
• potential for distortion of research agendas and for undervaluing certain types of research,
such as interdisciplinary or applied research. Concern has been expressed that the RAE can
inhibit speculative projects, because of the risk to departments and individuals of perceived
non-performance or non-achievement (The Royal Society, 2003). This would be exacerbated
by the proposed introduction of a “metrics” system of assessment (The Higher Education
Policy Institute, 2006).
Senior managers and human resources professionals in United Kingdom institutions have been
endeavouring to address these challenges and to develop coherent strategies, including revised criteria
for promotion, more flexible short- and medium-term ways of agreeing the balance of duties and
responsibilities; and relating these to broad re-articulations of career pathways.
Academic Identities
Notwithstanding increasing pressures upon institutions, Henkel (2000) concluded that academic
identities had largely remained intact, with her interviewees adapting conceptions of their identity,
rather than transforming them in response to various policy stimuli and other forces for change.
Another important message from Henkel’s (2002) research surrounds the centrality of identity to
academics, and the ways in which they perceive and value work, and presumably, by inference, the
work of the academic profession. However, Henkel did not investigate the nature of the identity of
those engaged exclusively in research, teaching, student support or some other function. There is no
reason to believe that such identities do not exist, or that they will not be equally significant to the life
and value systems of the individuals concerned, although they represent subsets of the total
“academic” population.
Henkel discusses the perceptions of self-identity of her respondents, and particularly how the
roles of teaching and research impact upon and create that identity. Whilst identity is influenced by