Background to the policy

Prior to the formation of the TEU, both AUS and ASTE had indicated guarded support for the introduction of the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF).”  In the initial stages of the development of the model the two unions hoped that it might be a mechanism by which research performance and research excellence could be better recognised and rewarded.”  However as the PBRF model began to operate in the sector, a number of problems associated with it emerged.”  The area of most concern to AUS and ASTE, and latterly to TEU, was the reporting of individual scores to institutions, with a resultant misuse of these in employment relationships.”  A number of other significant issues were also reported by members, including:

• a sense of being stigmatised for ‘low’ PBRF-rated staff;
• increases in workplace stress for some staff as further demands were placed on them to produce research, often without appropriate workload adjustments;
• a sense that the role of teacher is devalued under this model, and that the vital connection between teaching and research is compromised in the quest to maximise funding opportunities;
• the model inadequately measuring the value of local, indigenous, NZ-focused research.

Many TEU members have also expressed general concerns about the increasing frequency of internal and external monitoring/assessment of academic staff research and teaching performance, and the resulting rise in internal competition and erosion of academic culture.”  As well, general staff members have commented that little recognition of their contribution to research, or additional funding to provide the support required by the increased level of research activity, has been forthcoming.

A number of the concerns that the two unions raised in the early stages of the PBRF system also remain, including that institutions or disciplines with a more emergent research culture would be financially disadvantaged, and the potential for the model to create a bias against certain types of research (such as New Zealand-based research and multidisciplinary or collaborative research).

Some positive outcomes have resulted from the PBRF system, in terms of the sector giving a sharper focus to research activities, with some TEU members commenting that they feel better supported in their work.”  However this is outweighed by the many instances where institutions have used the PBRF model as a tool for increasingly onerous and uneccessary internal evaluation processes.

This has led to the TEU advocating for a comprehensive review of research assessment and funding systems post 2012.”  Our position is that the current model of research assessment contains too many flaws, chief among them the high cost of administering the system (both in actual dollars and staff time) and privacy issues relating to the use of individual scores, for it to continue to be a useful model.

Policy statement

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The TEU has consistently advocated for institutional processes that are structured to provide the best setting possible for quality research, teaching and learning.”  Our view is that the optimum environment for these activities to flourish is one of high trust, recognising that individual academic staff already participate in processes of scholarly critique through avenues such as peer review of their work, community feedback on research outcomes, and through each institution’s performance review system.

The TEU does not therefore support government assessment and funding policies that require individual staff to provide additional evidence of their performance for the purposes of distribution of research funding at the institutional level.”  Analysis of individual academic staff performance should occur within the appropriate department or faculty, and use of this information beyond that level must only be in an aggregated form, where the individual is not able to be identified.

Any future government policies seeking to assess the quality and/or quantity of research outputs in the tertiary sector must therefore focus at the macro-level (the institution), where funding is distributed, rather than using individual staff performance and outputs as the key driver for the disbursement of research funding.

Features of such a model may include:

1. A simplified system of recording/reporting research outputs, with a focus on auditing institutional capability (one measure could be taking a simple overall research outputs based approach, where institutions submit a portfolio of research outputs and additional research income, dividing these numbers by the number of employees to arrive at their institutional score).
2. A greater emphasis on scoring (for the purposes of funding and assessing ongoing development needs) at an aggregate level, with individual performance and outputs remaining within departments or faculties.”  Aggregate scoring at department or faculty level would also lead to greater recognition of the contribution made by general staff to the department’s success.
3. Recognition of the different stages of development of a research culture, such that the model encourages ongoing development, and is able to measure improvements/change.
4. Recognition of and the ability to appropriately measure the contribution of a range of research methodologies to the institution’s overall research outputs.
5. Being cost-effective – implying therefore an administratively streamlined process with minimal impact on academic and general staff within institutions.
6. The ability to appropriately measure the impact of research nationally and to local communities, where often its primary function is to build local social capital.
7. Recognition of and the ability to appropriately measure the contribution of both academic and general staff to research outputs.
8. The ability to assess adverse or perverse effects (such as negative gender or ethnicity outcomes that are attributable to the application of the model) and quickly address these.