Humanities and social sciences could face significant threats as New Zealand transforms its research assessment exercise into a mainly metrics-driven review of outputs, the University of Otago¡¯s vice-chancellor has warned.

Details of the country¡¯s proposed new Tertiary Research Excellence Fund (TREF) were unveiled last month, with the guided by metrics instead of the peer review panels used by the current Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), an exercise similar to the UK¡¯s Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Weighted citations and other yet-to-be developed ¡°secondary metrics¡± will be used for the quality evaluation component (worth 55 per cent) of the exercise, which allocates some NZ$315 million (?138 million) of block grants per year. Research degree completions will account for a further 25 per cent and an ¡°external research income¡± measure will make up 20 per cent of the 2027 exercise.

While broadly welcoming plans to reform the ¡°overly complex¡± PBRF, Otago¡¯s vice-chancellor Grant Robertson said he was concerned about how excellence in certain disciplines would be rewarded under a ¡°really hard citations-based assessment exercise¡±.

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¡°We are moving to a simplified PBRF based on citations but the question is around ¡®secondary metrics¡¯ and what those actually mean. How do you measure areas where citations often don¡¯t convey the full story?¡± said Robertson, who was finance minister from 2017 to 2023 in Jacinda Ardern¡¯s Labour government.

With New Zealand¡¯s universities under financial stress amid real-terms cuts to research budgets and falling income from international students, changes to research assessment could exacerbate funding problems for at-risk humanities and social sciences departments, continued Robertson, whose institution typically receives the second highest amount in PRBF funding behind the University of Auckland.

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¡°It would be a double whammy if we move to a really hard citations-based TREF,¡± said Robertson, who cautioned about viewing research impact in an overly narrow way.

¡°I¡¯ve always been a big believer in the impact of university research ¨C that¡¯s partly why taxpayers are willing to pay for this research to happen. But I¡¯m also interested in protecting research that is translational in different ways for society, such as humanities research or research that leads to public policy change,¡± he said, adding: ¡°I support research impact but I worry some of the measures in place are too blunt.¡±

The measures under consideration are part of a package of reforms proposed by New Zealand¡¯s former chief scientific advisor Peter Gluckman, who led an international advisory panel that informed wide-ranging changes for the UK¡¯s own REF, due in 2029. His , published in June 2023, to ¡°dramatically reduce the weighting given to research outputs and enhance that given to the ¡®people, culture and environment¡¯¡± led to radical changes, which now look likely to be reversed following a three-month pause to the REF announced last month.

Gluckman¡¯s report for the UK¡¯s REF also noted how the global ¡°trend is away from standard bibliometrics with all their foibles¡± and assessment of quality ¡°must, to a significant extent, be subjective and require some form of panel approach¡± ¨C a stance his blueprint for New Zealand¡¯s TREF appears to go against.

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Gluckman¡¯s latest research review has been accompanied by a larger set of recommendations for higher education funding more generally, although only some of these points have been accepted by New Zealand¡¯s government.

While undergraduate fee income has continued to rise in recent years, Robertson said there are significant parallels with England¡¯s funding model where universities insist below-inflation increases are not sufficient to maintain the current system.

¡°Certainly higher education funding in New Zealand is not sustainable ¨C next year we will have less money than the previous year and the amount will be less in the following year,¡± he said, adding: ¡°We have more students and higher expectations of what universities should provide ¨C that is not sustainable without more money.¡± Robertson said further state support rather than tuition fee rises should be the way forward.

¡°Not enough money is going into the system and this funding is now declining ¨C the solution is for government to properly value what universities do. Sir Peter Gluckman¡¯s report gives them ways to do that. If we don¡¯t do anything then something will give in the system ¨C we can¡¯t afford to be complacent about this,¡± he said.

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com