'Today marks the passing of the old ways'

The waiting is now over. Initial indicators are that Bournemouth University has done well in the 2008 RAE, albeit from a relatively low base in 2001. Our one-line pitch to the world is that 80 per cent of our research centre submissions contain 4* activity–not bad for a university that spent most of its post-1992 life as a teaching-focussed institution.

Indeed, over 50 per cent of all activity rated is 2* and above, meaning that we can claim with authority to be competing internationally in our research efforts. OK, so we didn’t submit all our academic staff, but then that was never our intention. Generally, this issue is already a major bone of contention, and I look forward over the coming weeks to watching the 1994 upstarts, currently biting at the heels of the Russell Group, declare the whole thing a sham (nice one HESA!).

At Bournemouth, we were never in it purely for the money and, despite all the giddy excitement, will not forget that students, and their educational experience, lie at the heart of what we aim to do.

While BU has made significant improvement internally, our progress is perhaps best descried as steady when set against the national picture. Based on the ResearchResearch Quality Index rating, we have certainly improved on 2001; we are placed 9^th in the post-1992 table and 4^th in the South West, behind Bristol, Bath and Exeter.

Drilling down, our flagship departments in Art and Design have again led the way, but emerging strength is clear in Geography and Environmental Studies, while Archaeology tops the table as best post-1992 institution for research. Especially pleasing is to see Bournemouth’s first ever research submission in medicine (UOA4), with 50 per cent of all activity rated greater than 2*. Although we prop up the bottom of this particular table, we have to start somewhere; we are now on the radar with something of recognised substance to build on. Continuing with the health theme, our Nursing and Midwifery have also done well nationally.

Looking at the wider picture, a big problem is going to be how best to unpick the quality profiles in a way that is meaningful and consistent across the sector. Already emerging are big differences in league table positions depending on whether rankings are made using QI or Grade Point Average. Both methods appear equally valid but, for BU, they result in significant differences in position.

What journalists and the wider public will make of it is hard to predict. However, just like the politician who loses the by-election but claims victory, there may well be something for (nearly) everyone after the dust settles. University web pages over the next few months are likely to present themselves as case studies in selective interpretation.

So, what of the future? Seven years have passed since the previous RAE and, over that time, I estimate that QR money has been spent at an average rate of around £43 per second, mostly by half a dozen or so universities. Today marks the passing of the old way of doing things. BU has been a key player in helping HEFCE to develop a better understating of how metrics can help inform future research funding–we were one of the original 22 institutions in the REF pilot, and one of five in the follow-up exercise. This activity has much to do with our investment and fast footwork in setting up our institutional repository, Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO), which is currently one of the more densely populated research archives in UK Higher Education. The challenge now is to ensure that the data underpinning the REF does not morph into the Research Excellence Fudge.

On a personal note, the day has been something of a rollercoaster. The early morning anticipation (has a computer screen ever been such a messenger of glad academic tidings or bringer of doom?), then elation at the volume of 4* activity (more than I dared hope for), was followed by the steadily dawning realisation that, set against the national picture where running fast means standing still, we have a long way to go yet.
Nick Petford is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at Bournemouth University.

Comments

[BU_staff]

An interesting bit of PR from Professor Nick Petford. Bournemouth has certainly had a variety of changes imposed upon it; however none of these can be given credit for the RAE result. In fact the academic areas that did best are the very same ones that have been arguing they are under attack from the Curran/Petford administration; not exactly a ringing endorsement of managerial strategy. More worrying is the disingenuous claim to place students at the heart of strategy, is this the same University that is cutting contact time to the minimum, encouraging poor feedback on assignments by squeezing staff time, allowing students to be ripped off by Costa Coffee, making them pay for everything from ID cards to dyslexia tests, making them pay the highest rent for student accomodation in the country and sell the courses on the night life? Indeed Petford notes the passing of old ways, but those ways may just have been the ones that put Bournemouth University in the position it is in and the new ones may just be in process of killing it. The Curran and Petford regime at Bournemouth are ideas people, blue-sky thinkers with little care for detail, people who think something will work and then implement it regardless of evidence in support or to the contrary; are these really new ways we should celebrate?

[Tom Watson]

Nick Petford rightly celebrates the transformation of the research culture at BU. Big changes have been made and the university is making significant progress not only in research but learning and teaching, too. The research-teaching linkage is coming through into programmes and frameworks in ways that benefit students and staff.

One ommission of Nick's was the terrific performance of the UoA66 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies - which has come from nowehere to have the second-highest ranking (2.500) in the university. It's an exceptional effort from a dedicated team of academics who are also excellent teachers. They did it without any QR funding, too.

As for the gripes by the unnamed 'BU staff', these are sad old tales that are mostly baloney. It's time to celebrate really good results at BU and stop worrying about the cost of coffee. The rest of the university has moved on.

[John Brissenden]

NIck Petford's tribute to Bournemouth's "flagship" Art and Design departments might raise a smile among members of Bournemouth's Computer Animation department last year, when he made his contempt for their research efforts abundantly clear in a characteristically foul-mouthed outburst.

Rebecca Boden's post today reminds us that today's results are merely a snapshot of submissions made two years ago, before the Curranistas had had a chance to make much of an impact. Their subsequent ideological jihad against sections of Bournemouth's academic staff - not least in those departments responsible for today's good results - mean Nick's cheerleading rings all the more hollow.

[Mike Molesworth]

Although it would be a shame for this success to be overshadowed by the ongoing disputes between staff and management at BU, it would be equally disappointing if the VC and Prof. Pedford didn't reflect on the fact that the two best performing departments in the RAE are also the most vocal in expressing their concerns about recent university management policy.

[richard]

We teach propaganda at BU and isn't it obvious from our senior management's positioning statement and the totally disingenuous comment about stop worrying about the price of coffee....(you know this refers to broader and serious issues) as somebody who was part of the submission for the 'successful RAE' my own personal experience here at BU has been one of frustration....Our voice is rarely heard and mostly marginalised.....our work load is getting worse with some plainly stupid ‘initiatives’ being imposed from the centre and the relationship between OVC and many staff is at a low ebb - over 90% voted no confidence in the v.c. less than a year ago
So I am genuinely confused...this is a good result - largely because if the staff willing to dedicate their time to what they have a passion for not because of a strategy document someone wrote and nobody read
Here’s a chance to start bridging the gap between us and ‘you’ Nick and co...but I doubt you will see beyond your own rhetoric

[BU Colleague]

It would be a shame for any reader to read the complaining posts and miss out on the real story that great progress is being made at BU. Earlier in the week the QAA's Institutional Audit gave "Confidence" in the management of the University in regard to academic standards and to "quality of learning opportunities available to students". Now we have a really big uplift in the RAE performance and rankings ("fourth fastest rise" say the media).

Sure, we can improve communications but the general direction of travel is very positive. So judge the evidence - the RAE and QAA say BU is performing well. Three people on one corner of one floor of one building say we aren't. It's a no-brainer.

[Colin Pritchard]

Colleagues, this is the first time I have ever used a `blog' but felt compelled to defend the real achievments of my Bournemouth colleagues, which incdently, is also refelcted in the QA results.
Irrespective of views about the rationale for the RAE- de facto academics in the different Universties are being compared on a reasonably reliable framework in fashionable and unfashionable instituions. Surely, colleagues should be pleased at the evidence of real academic progress at Bournemouth - so the world's not perfect,is it anywhere. Moreover these results show that excellence is spread around British Universties not just in the traditional universties.
Sadly, thoughts like `dog in the major' -`mean minded Cato's' come to mind. I wonder, if the energy put into complaining had been directed elsewhere???
There is a polynesian saying :- "They that would win the great prize must burn the mid-night oil and leave a little blood"

[richard]

well colleagues what is clear - is how a few people are unwilling to take a little critique - odd given the profession we are in ...nothing should be considered a 'no brainer' in or world should it?? so i am one of 3 people in one corner of one building...so the anonymous poster knows me - well hello this is Richard again - and i seem to be able to have manipulated over 90% of ucu members to vote no confidence in the vc with my 2 little mates...no sadly i think i accidentally represent a large group of academics who have not been impressed with the way managers have conducted things - but many are afraid to express such views (see survey results of ucu research into bullying and intimidation earlier in 08 - i want to engage in dialogue to improve it ...but ...alas little chance i guess....

[BU_staff]

I seem to have started something, I am pleased about that. I want to make a couple of points clear. Firstly I applaud the achievements of us all in putting the University on a sound footing for research, but also applaud us all as we have done this with little or no support in a time when research was something you did as an aside from teaching. Professor Petford said yesterday that systems were now in place to support us further and I do hope that is the case. What rankled me was that he was taking credit for producing this result when any work that went into submissions was written in early 2006. This is our achievement and not one born of the 'Curranista' management team. The same is largely the case with the QAA, the changes are only sporadically implemented across the University and so it is the old system in which confidence is placed. That is the real no-brainer. Hence my reaction to the PR that claimed all is better due to the arrival of Curran and Petford et al.
My real fear is that we may not be so well placed in the future. The core of what we do is being eroded and the collegiate spirit of team work and support is moving to one of competition. To speak out is to receive bullying responses, I have received those personally hence my anonymity.
There is a simple fact of life that is ignored in the process of blue sky thinking on the fifth floor of Poole House, we need to be good at research as well as delivering a good student experience. That is not simply about the price of coffee, that is a metaphor for the way in which they are being sidelined in decision making. We want better quality students that are capable of independent learning, but do our programmes in management career oriented subjects attract that calibre of student? UEG think so but there is no evidence. More worrying is the uncertainty that follows announcements of a review of our school structure where successful teams may be broken up and scattered in some way that may be logical from an economic perspective but is self-defeating in developing a research culture further.
Colleagues, we have achieved a great deal, but my question is are the changes that are constantly imposed coupled with a Stalinist philosophy of permanent revolution going to prevent development and where is the evidence that this will not be the case. I am not one of the three detractors in a small corner of one floor of one building but one of many who find it difficult to have any input into decision making yet find on a day to day basis my working life made more and more difficult. This, it seems, is the reward for our achievements. Happy Xmas

[Kate Galvin]

The School of Health and Social Care are celebrating. (UoA 11) Nursing and Midwifery research came 19th out of 35, 75% of our research activity is rated 3* or greater with a proportion of research identified as world leading. This practice focused subject area, important to society, is on the map in the South West with an 'international excellence' badge. Our distinctive focus on human care and well-being through investigation of peoples' experiences is of significant value in developing practice in health and social care. Building on over 10 years of sustained activity by nurses, midwives, social workers, psychologists and sociologists in this field, we have added strength to our school. We have produced over 30 postdoctoral professionals, have recruited more leading scholars and have attracted and invested in more doctoral students. This is all good news for knowledge generation at Bournemouth University.