Debate not decision 1

Your article on the possible use of metrics to assess research quality in the arts and humanities ("Arts academics slate metrics", July ) triggered a number of concerns that are unfounded.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council have convened a working group from across the arts and humanities community in response to the Government's commitment to exploring options for the increased use of metrics in assessing research quality and the allocation of funding.

This was done to make sure that our community was adequately consulted about future models. The membership of the committee was constituted to embrace a wide range of academic disciplines and to include a broad geographical and institutional spread.

Since the group has, as yet, met only once, it is too early to speculate on what our recommendations might be. We shall be consulting widely and we welcome input from all disciplines and institutions.

It would be erroneous to suggest that the group decided to favour a system based on metrics to replace peer review to determine quality-related funding.

The group is exploring a range of options including metrics-based models.

It is hard to see how ruling out metrics in advance of research into whether they could make a greater contribution to the assessment of research quality in the arts and humanities helpfully contributes to the debate.

Michael Worton
Chair, Hefce/AHRC working group