Funding councils unveil new submissions criteria

The higher education funding councils published detailed guidance this week on what information institutions will need to gather for their submissions to the 2008 research assessment exercise.

Funding council officials have been keen to stress that submissions will be broadly similar in format to those for the previous assessment in 2001 - to minimise the burden on universities.

Yet buried in the 50-page document are a few key changes that could have a big impact on which departments prosper under the new-style research rating system that will determine the allocation of billions of pounds in research grants.

The textual commentary included in the submissions, in which departments explain their broad research plans and staff promotion strategies, for example, will need to have a sharper focus than in past RAEs.

Each of the 67 subject panels carrying out the assessments will publish its own detailed advice on what will be expected for this part of the of submission. In some disciplines, the commentary is expected to carry far more clout than previously.

Universities will also be expected for the first time to produce an "internal equality RAE code of practice". This will monitor the selection of academics for the exercise in terms of their race, gender and disability. It reflects the greater onus on public-sector bodies to tackle discrimination in the workplace.

The document spells out how specialist advice will be sought by panels to assess interdisciplinary submissions. And it confirms that there will no longer be a special category for staff who move from one university to another close to the final census date for the exercise.

The confirmation of various deadlines for the assessment also reveals one further distinctive feature of the 2008 RAE:the eleventh-hour last-chance saloon.

While institutions will have to finalise their submissions by November 30, 2007, they will be able to list academic papers published up to December 31, 2007.

This means that they can gamble by including publications due to published in December but not actually available at the time of submission.

Any publication that is delayed until January 2008, however, will not count in the assessment.

The guidance provides the basic overarching rules for the 2008 assessment.

But the real nitty-gritty of the competition will emerge in two weeks' time on July 16 when the panels consult the sector on their proposed criteria for how they will approach the exercise.

Among other critical decisions for the panels is how much importance they will place on academic papers, departmental research plans and the esteem of academics when judging submissions.

Full guidance will be published at www.rae.ac.uk

COUNTDOWN TO THE RAE

• Mid-July 2005: panels publish draft criteria and working methods
  
• January 2006: panels publish final criteria
  
• Spring 2007: survey of institutions' submission intentions
  
• July 31, 2007: end of assessment period for research income and student data
  
• October 31, 2007: census date for academic staff
  
• November 30, 2007: closing date for submissions
  
• December 31, 2007: end of assessment period for publications
  
• December 2008: results published.