The rhetoric of “excellence” is pervasive across the academy. It is used to refer to research
outputs as well as researchers, theory and education, individuals and organizations, from art …

Historically and traditionally, quality assurance (QA) organisations have had two functions:
the enhancement of the quality of institutions and programmes the accountability of the …

Little is known about the process of evaluating the economic and societal impact of research
undertaken in university settings. In this paper, we explore the accounts of senior academics …

Far from allowing a governance of universities by the invisible hand of market forces,
research performance assessments do not just measure differences in research quality, but …

This article is concerned with the macro-cultural ideal or institutional myth of excellence as
defined and used in the evaluation of academic staff as part of an institutional logic. Such …

At the same time as policy-makers, academic gatekeepers and institutional managements
would have us believe that research selectivity is now an acceptable part of academic life …

This article focuses on 'impact'as a new condition of research assessment for UK academics.
It explores a history of resistance to an 'impact agenda'and how impact as a component of …

Increasingly, new academics are entering higher education without conventional research
training and without a clear idea of what research actually involves. This is particularly true …

Evaluation of university-based research already has a reasonably long tradition in the UK,
but proposals to revise the framework for national evaluation aroused controversy in the …

The relationship between education practice and education research has a long history. In
modern times, education practice and its relation to education research has been central to …