Study On University Research Assessment In UK

The university Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of UK plays a vital role in the quality advancement of UK research. The first RAE took place in 1986 and the sixth RAE will be finished in late 2008. The RAE is conducted by the Higher Education Funding Committee (HEFC) and it is based on peer expert review. The RAE evaluates the submissions from higher education institutions that are eligible to receive funding from HEFC. The result is to be dividend into different rating scales and research funding is distributed to different higher education according to the result.In this article, firstly, the author briefly analyses the definition of university research assessment, and introduces the university research assessment practices in Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Australia. Then the author analyses the theory background, system background and reality background of the UK university research assessment. Thirdly the author describes the six research assessments in detail. Basing on this point, the author sums up the evolvement process, development characteristics and development trend of the research assessment in UK.The article concludes that: (1) UK university research assessment consists on peer expert review based on academic discipline; (2) The RAE is conducted by third-party agency, which plays as an buffer between university and government; (3) The assessment process becomes more normalized and transparent; (4) The RAE pays more attention to developmental assessment and emphasis on whole impact on higher educations'research quality; (5) The government macro controls the universities'research focuses and quality by research funding.