PBRF – The Good, The Bad and the Not Worth It

Association of University Staff

Media Release

Attn Education Reporter 4 May 2007

Performance Based Research Fund – The Good, The Bad and the Not Worth It.

The President of the Association of University Staff today called on the Government to consider seriously whether or not a further round of assessment for the Performance Based Research Fund in 2012 would really be worth the cost and effort.

“Results released today from the 2006 PBRF round should convince Government that another round of PBRF in its current form would not be worth doing,” said Association of University Staff Academic President Nigel Haworth.

“Today’s results have good news, bad news and news not worth knowing,” he said. “The good news is that all universities have shown high levels of improvement in research outputs from the already high base shown in the 2003 results,” he said. “The Government and the public can rest assured that universities are the leading research institutions in this country, and investment in them pays off and is money well spent.”

“The bad news is that lots of the information produced by the PBRF is not relevant and is misleading in terms of any person looking to choose the ‘best’university or the ‘best’ teacher of a particular subject. There are so many variables that lead to the various results that the information is not reliable,” he said. “For example, the Carey Baptist College came in at number nine on the quality league tables yet it only submitted five portfolios and only three of its staff received quality scores. At number eight (one higher than Carey), AUT submitted 243 portfolios including six A grade researchers, the two are simply not comparable.”

“The part of the exercise ‘not worth it’ is the cost of finding out what many already know – that universities are performing well and doing the bulk of the research in this country. AUS members spent thousands of hours preparing portfolios for PBRF assessment, universities have full time staff managing this exercise and the TEC reported today that over 200 people were involved in this year’s assessment – and all to find out what should be clear – universities are doing great research. A simpler and cheaper system must be devised that saves the best and ditches the rest,”said Nigel Haworth.

AUS will participate in the upcoming review of this year’s PBRF round and hopes to provide some new ideas to improve the system.

ENDS