24th November 2010, 06:08 PM
I found Sinclair's comment above puzzling because I do not understand exactly what the RAE standards are - obviously they need to be 'of world or international quality'. But what does that mean? Quality of 'research' has to be world class? Well, although we all might claim that standards have dropped because of competitive tendering, I still see some very high quality - world class - method, presentation and interpretation among the majoirty of the stuff published by many of the units over the last couple of decades. Much of it, for god's sake, is refereed by HE academics! How then does it not qualify for RAE inclusion - or is this a subtle way of saying that the quality of work of some uni based units was not as good as others? Not sure I would agree with that either.
I think we need FAME to do a bit more work advocating the high standard of its academic product and achievement to the HE sector and whoever is left to fund it in the future. OK, I will get the 'but grey lit is dull and lifeless' but there has been a great deal of high quality research, much of it accessible to different audiences, over the last 20 years.
But anyway - having said all that, I see from CBA's twitter feed that the HE Academy for History, Classics and Archaeology will cease to exist from 2012. Another nail in the coffin!
I think we need FAME to do a bit more work advocating the high standard of its academic product and achievement to the HE sector and whoever is left to fund it in the future. OK, I will get the 'but grey lit is dull and lifeless' but there has been a great deal of high quality research, much of it accessible to different audiences, over the last 20 years.
But anyway - having said all that, I see from CBA's twitter feed that the HE Academy for History, Classics and Archaeology will cease to exist from 2012. Another nail in the coffin!