Engineers fire lone salvo at RAE

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has launched a blistering attack on the research assessment exercise in its submission to the funding council's consultation. It questions the cost-effectiveness of both the funding and research councils using peer review to allocate funds.

It recognises the need for some non-earmarked money, but says this could be provided by "appropriate overhead allocation within a single appraisal system". Other research councils support the RAE. The Natural Environmental Research Council says the exercise should continue to be based on peer review, but calls for multi-disciplinary research to be better assessed and criticises the "transfer market" in top researchers. The Medical Research Council also supports the RAE, but calls for some "significant evolutionary changes". These include better division of units within the medical sciences.