23rd November 2010, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 23rd November 2010, 04:36 PM by Madweasels.)
Apropos 'research' in the context of developer-led archaeology and University based units, I found this quite interesting and somewhat puzzling. It is a quote from Anthony Sinclair's excellent paper again - Archaeology and the Global Economic Crisis (Nathan Schlanger and Kenneth Aitchison eds.). Extract from page 37.
...academic archaeology has followed a specific trajectory in the last fifteen years, that is quite different
to that followed by professional, developer-funded archaeology; and this has
led to a wide gulf separating these two different forms of practice. Much, if not
most, of the archaeological fieldwork and publication that results from developer-
funded archaeology would not be recognised (within an RAE), as “research
of world or international quality”, the standard to which all RAE publications
aim9; and archaeologists in higher education have become progressively removed
from this developer-funded work, and knowledge of its findings. Moreover,
archaeological fieldwork projects run by academic archaeologists, and funded as
research projects, are driven by their RAE submittable, potential written outputs
(usually derived from extensive post-excavation analysis and interpretation)...
And on page 38,
...Moreover, as noted above, the publications
of these units do not make much impact within the RAE driven HE sector. In
the last two years the units at Sheffield, and Manchester have been closed down in
their host institutions; others are under close scrutiny...
(Madweasels again) Something not quite right here, I think, if the product of developer-led work is lower-tier research, as far as RAE is concerned. Surely, this needs reassessing.
...academic archaeology has followed a specific trajectory in the last fifteen years, that is quite different
to that followed by professional, developer-funded archaeology; and this has
led to a wide gulf separating these two different forms of practice. Much, if not
most, of the archaeological fieldwork and publication that results from developer-
funded archaeology would not be recognised (within an RAE), as “research
of world or international quality”, the standard to which all RAE publications
aim9; and archaeologists in higher education have become progressively removed
from this developer-funded work, and knowledge of its findings. Moreover,
archaeological fieldwork projects run by academic archaeologists, and funded as
research projects, are driven by their RAE submittable, potential written outputs
(usually derived from extensive post-excavation analysis and interpretation)...
And on page 38,
...Moreover, as noted above, the publications
of these units do not make much impact within the RAE driven HE sector. In
the last two years the units at Sheffield, and Manchester have been closed down in
their host institutions; others are under close scrutiny...
(Madweasels again) Something not quite right here, I think, if the product of developer-led work is lower-tier research, as far as RAE is concerned. Surely, this needs reassessing.