Sixteen universities will face the old-style teaching inspections that vice-chancellors thought they had seen the back of, the Quality Assurance Agency has confirmed, writes Phil Baty.
Funding chiefs insist that while universities wait for the first "light-touch" quality audits, they must receive some "discipline-level engagements".
During the 2002-05 transition, before the new regime of six-yearly audit cycles reaches a steady state, full subject reviews will take place in institutions that have a poor record from the 1995-2001 round. This applies to those that received an aggregate score of 17 points or less out of 24 in two or more subject reviews and to those with grade profiles containing too many low grade 2s in two or more review reports.
Nineteen universities meet the criteria, including Nottingham and Leeds from the elite Russell group.
But three of the 19 are set to escape the future subject reviews as their new-style audits are scheduled for the early part of the new audit cycle.
The QAA has confirmed that the Higher Education Funding Council for England has also insisted that even universities that have performed well during the past subject review exercise should face "some interactions with the QAA at the level of the discipline" while they await their first audits.