An exercise in futility 1

It is perhaps a little too late in the day to discover such problems as difficulties of comparing a piece of medical research with a piece of economics research ("RAE results may not reflect true quality of UK research, warns chair", 4 December). Had the research assessment exercise "establishment" realised the futility of using these ratings as a yardstick for allocation of research funding at its inception, perhaps UK universities would have been in much better shape now in terms of research as well as teaching.

Dipak Ghosh, University of Stirling.