Council of Deans and Heads of UK University Faculties for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting
Joint Funding Bodies Review of Research Assessment
Initial contribution from the Council of Deans
1. The Council of Deans and Heads of UK University Faculties for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting welcomes the review of research assessment and is pleased to provide an initial contribution. Nursing and the allied health professions are committed to develop more international quality research. We also recognise the need for the integration of research, education and practice with consumer involvement.
The Council looks forward to contributing to the planned focus groups in this review.
2(i) The Council identifies with the list of concerns about the current RAE provided in paragraph 6 of the invitation document. It particularly agrees with “the need to properly recognise collaborations and partnerships across institutions and with organisations outside HE.” This is especially applicable in nursing and the allied health professions where collaboration between institutions is vital to help develop research capacity, and some of the most fruitful and relevant research is carried out in partnership with colleagues in practice in health and social care.
2(ii) The Council also welcomes “the need to fully recognise all aspects of excellence in research such as …value added to professional practice and …impact beyond the research community”. Again these concerns are particularly apt for research in nursing and the allied health professions. Research which has a direct impact on clinical and professional practice, and thus on patient care, is a priority for funding bodies, particularly the Departments of Health (DoH).
2(iii) We also identify strongly with the concern that the current uni-disciplinary base of the RAE does not encourage interdiciplinarity and multidisciplinarity research, at a time when inter-professional learning and research in healthcare is being actively encouraged by the Departments of Health.
3(i) The Council strongly welcomes the view that any future assessment of research quality in HEIs must include the question of their contribution to the development of researchers as well as their research output. This is particularly important in disciplines such as nursing and the allied health professions where the development of research trajectories are in their early phases. We also welcome therefore the recognised need to “consider whether targeted help is required to enable new subjects and new fields to develop”.
3(ii) In the case of nursing and the allied health professions, a powerful case for a capacity and capability development fund was made by the HEFCE/DoH Task Group 3, which reported in December 2001. The Council of Deans welcomed the commitment to such a fund made by HEFCE and DoH in May 2002, although we are currently awaiting information on the magnitude of the fund. In its final report Task Group 3 concluded that “existing funding mechanisms… make it hard to develop excellence in areas without a research tradition unless seedcorn funding is provided to enable research groups to develop excellence and, equally important in terms of long-term viability, a reputation for excellence”. It also concluded that while there is arguably a shortage of high quality research output at present in these disciplines, “there is good reason to believe that there is abundant potential for the volume of high quality research to be expanded if appropriate incentives are in place”. This has subsequently been evidenced by the volume and quality of applications this year for researcher development and post-doctoral awards offered by the DoH.
4(i) In a number of discussions and conferences both University Faculties of Health and the NHS are now starting to focus on issues around the recruitment, retention and the required expansion of the education workforce in the healthcare professions. The implementation of the NHS National Plan in England, and the equivalents in the other countries of the UK, involve significant expansion of both pre-registration student numbers and of continuing professional development. This will require an expanded healthcare education workforce, at a time when the attractions of working in higher education are often less apparent than previously.
4(ii) The discussions include the application in these disciplines of the concept of a ‘clinical academic’ career that will enable and encourage staff to develop and change between clinical, teaching and research roles during their career. We are working to remove potential barriers to moves between NHS and higher education employment to facilitate this development.
4(iii) In this context the infrastructure to develop the research roles, research capacity and a research rich environment is essential. It is important that future research assessment methodologies encourage, and do not penalise, these developments.
5. The Council also notes the ‘additional criteria’ for the evaluation and selection of research proposals under the new European Union ‘Framework Six’ programme. These include “synergies with education at all levels”, “readiness to engage with actors beyond the research community and the public as a whole… and to explore the wider societal implications of the proposed work”, and “activities to increase the role of women in research”. We are confident that research in nursing and the allied health professions will meet all these criteria, including the last. We invite the review group to consider how future research assessment philosophy and methodologies would synergise with these criteria.