Importance of RAE scientific research evaluation
British universities do not pay much attention to the ranking of various media or newspapers, but attach great importance to the rating of RAE. The ranking of RAE universities is the direct basis of the research strength of British universities. In fact, the RAE system, which has been in operation for many years, aims to divide the research funds according to the research quality of each school. To this end, RAE is responsible for evaluating the quality of scientific research in British universities and research institutions. RAE divides British research into 69 sub-disciplines, and universities report them to peer review by department. The level of RAE Star directly affects schools and students in the following three aspects.
First, the teaching and research funds of British national universities are directly allocated by the state, and the teaching funds are usually allocated according to the heads of students, with little difference between schools; However, the research funding depends entirely on the level of professional stars, and the difference between 5* and 1 star can be worlds apart; In order to get the government's scientific research funds, universities cultivate scientific research stars at all costs.
Second, a considerable part of research and development; D of major international companies; D research projects are completed by universities, and then R&; Which university is awarded the D research project will depend entirely on its RAE star rating.
Third, the higher the RAE star rating, the more top scientists and experts and professors in this field, which will affect the quality of students' education.
Organization and purpose of RAE
RAE is one of the two most authoritative evaluations in Britain. Because the purpose of the evaluation is to let the British Ministry of Higher Education divide the scientific research funds according to the scientific research quality of each school (about 65.438 billion pounds a year), this index directly reflects the scientific research strength and status of the school in this major.
The organizer of RAE is the Higher Education Fund Committee (HEFCE) in the UK, and it has joined hands with the Higher Education Fund Committees in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to conduct scientific research quality assessment.
Evaluation process of RAE
Evaluation activities take 4-5 years as a cycle. At the beginning, the RAE evaluation team first formulated the evaluation criteria and listened to the opinions of universities. After completing the revision of the evaluation criteria, the university has two years to prepare the evaluation materials. According to the declared subject areas, colleges and universities can choose their own evaluation expert groups.
Before the formal review, RAE will publish the materials submitted by the participating disciplines online. After the materials are submitted, the evaluation committees will judge the quality of scientific research according to the evaluation indicators and methods published online, and the evaluation of the participating materials should be combined with the evaluation of scientific research performance, strategy and scientific research culture. Finally, the results of scientific research evaluation will be publicly released on the website, including the overall evaluation results report of scientific research evaluation and the evaluation results report classified by evaluation units and participating schools.
RAE evaluation index
The full score of RAE evaluation is 5*, and then gradually decreases from 5 to 1. Specifically, it means:
5* indicates that the department's scientific research work has reached the world advanced level in most fields and reached the domestic advanced level in all other fields.
It means that the department's scientific research work has reached the world advanced level in some fields and reached the domestic advanced level in almost all other fields.
The scientific research work of representative departments has reached the domestic advanced level in almost all fields, and reached the world level in some fields. And so on.
What needs to be added is that in 2008, RAE carried out some reforms on the scientific research evaluation system. The main content of the reform is that in the index system of 200 1, some unspecified items are described, redefined and the grade is lowered.
Description of grade quality standards of scientific research evaluation standards in 2008;
4* Reach the world leading position in creativity, importance and accuracy.
3* It has reached a higher international level in creativity, importance and accuracy.
2* Reach the world level in creativity, importance and accuracy.
1* has reached the domestic level in creativity, importance and accuracy.
Without research, the quality can not reach the domestic level.
For example:
Name of organization appraisal unitNo. Appraisal unit name FTE A 4* 3* 2* 1* Not classified.
University of Birmingham 1 Cardiovascular Medicine 25.70 5 35 60 0
The table shows the RAE scoring system of the University of Birmingham in the field of cardiovascular medical research: 5% of the research work of the University of Birmingham in the field of cardiovascular medical research is at the level of 4*, 35% at the level of 3* and 60% at the level of 1*. In other words, the greater the proportion of a university's research work in the 4*, the stronger its research strength in this major or field.
Evaluation Characteristics of RAE —— Taking Discipline as Unit
Due to the different development history of colleges and universities, the overall level is very different, and running schools has its own characteristics. Therefore, it is difficult to reflect fairness by taking the school as the evaluation unit. Therefore, the important feature of RAE is to take disciplines as evaluation units and rank according to the scientific research quality of each discipline. The scientific research evaluation discipline consists of 15 major discipline evaluation fields, 67-69 minor discipline fields and 67-69 evaluation expert groups. Each expert group has 9- 18 experts, and there are more than 900 evaluation experts, about one third of whom are from abroad. The purpose of inviting famous foreign experts is to ensure that the established evaluation standards can be consistent with the first-class standards of corresponding disciplines and fields in the world. On the other hand, due to more and more interdisciplinary phenomena, many interdisciplinary subjects also involve research cooperation between countries, which requires foreign experts to participate in the formulation of scientific research evaluation indicators.
What kind of students should pay attention to RAE?
The higher the RAE star rating of graduate students and above, the more top scientists and experts and professors gather in this field, so the more opportunities for students to receive face-to-face lectures from masters, and the higher the possibility of participating in cutting-edge projects. Generally, RAE can get more than 4 points, which shows that its research quality is advanced in Britain or internationally, and the choice is safe. It should be reminded that in the University Ranking of The Times, the RAE score is converted into a 7-point system, and the average RAE score obtained by various majors in the university is taken to comprehensively reflect the research level of the university.
More RAE interpretations
The score of RAE is directly related to the university funding, and only institutions (departments) with scores above 3 can get these funding. The higher the score, the more money you get. Secondly, the results are the direct basis of the scientific research strength of universities. The scientific research strength of colleges and universities is weighted average according to the quality of scientific researchers (according to the above standard 1-7 points). Therefore, if a university has many researchers with a score of 7, if others' scores are too low, the average score will be very low, which will directly lead to the low ranking of the university. Due to the strong influence of RAE, universities have to increase research investment. RAE believes that this factor directly leads to the improvement of British research strength.