Research quality assessment and the metrication of the social sciences

The British system of quality assessment of research in universities, known as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), has recently been the subject of major public policy review and debate. The system of research quality or performance assessment has been running for over twenty years, although many of its facets have changed as has the increasingly marketised political economy. Nevertheless, the UK RAE has been the prototype for the growth and development of such systems internationally, although how different countries have conceived of such forms of review has varied greatly. The question of the relationship between research quality in higher education and the public funding of research lies at the heart of what has become a contentious and acrimonious debate in the UK. While these issues can be seen as fundamentally about social and economic matters, in fact the social sciences as an organised group of subjects or interests have not played a key role in the public arena. This article outlines the contours of the recent debates in the UK, by comparison and contrast with the ways in which such systems of performance and quality assessment have been debated inter alia in Australia, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands. In essence, the issues have centred upon questions of measurement of performance known as metrication, and bibliometrics versus social judgments about research quality.