'Zero' incentives

Deciding how many staff to submit to the research assessment exercise has always been difficult.

Until now, the cliff edges in the funding formula, and league tables that ignored non-submitted staff, meant that money and reputation could be improved by leaving out active researchers. When the funding councils tell us more about how they will use the quality profiles to allocate money, I hope it will become apparent that including extra staff in a submission carries no financial risk.

The Times Higher could help by drawing up league tables on the basis of all academic staff, counting those not submitted as "zero star".

Submitting all active researchers would then benefit both finances and reputation.

Richard Green
Hull University Business School