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REF’s call

                        

Ivory Tower: Who is leaving a message for the REF team?

You’ve reached the voicemail of the Research Excellence Framework team, please leave a message after the tone.

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Good ’morrow excellent research people, this is Jacob Rees-Mogg, minister for the 18th century. I visited your offices today, but you were all out, something to do with a rest day, or maybe it was REF day, oh dear. As taxpayer-funded civil servants, I hope you were not working from home. I am given to understand that most of your assessment panels were run over the internet. That was all very well, but we must now enjoy the benefits of the world-leading vaccine programme, so as soon as possible I want to see you all getting back to meeting in motorway service station hotels to look at your spreadsheets. While I’m on the line, I wonder if you’ve noticed any benefits of Brexit? If you have, could you send them to me? So far, I’ve got longer immigration queues at airports and the return of Bovril—anything else welcome.

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Eh, eh…this is the vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge. I would like to speak to your manager…I’ll wait…I’m still waiting…Do you know who I am?…Is this thing even working? Look, there seems to have been some kind of mistake. Have you seen the league tables? You need to get oot and aboot more. Third? Cambridge doesn’t do third. We do second. This is discrimination! Cambridge is being disadvantaged by your grading and your equality frameworks. I’m still waiting to speak to your manager…Do I need to put a dollar into this or something? Eh?

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Kwasi Kwarteng here. I would just like to say that it is perfectly normal for the prime minister to do whatever it is he is supposed to have done this week, and it is definitely not a resigning matter or grounds for time in an open prison…Sorry, force of habit. I’m actually here to congratulate you all on a splendid job running the Research Thingy Exercise, whatever it is. I’ve got the whole report in my red box, and I’ll definitely get round to it just after I’ve come up with some ideas to help with energy prices. Apparently, if you place a magnet on the meter, it runs backwards. Another good one is to put on a jumper if you are cold. To cut down on energy bills at BEIS, we’ve asked all the civil servants to work from home. But don’t tell Jacob that, he thinks they’ve all just nipped down to Pret A Manger for Bovril lattes.

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Yah, Morgan, this is Jurgen Klopp. I would just like to say that the REF does not know what he is doing. How can he not give a penalty to Liverpool against Tottenham Hotspur when we are obviously entitled to one in the last minute of the game like we normally get? You wouldn’t do that to Pep Guardiola. It would be all world-leading this and world-leading that. I was told that you would recognise 4* achievement, now we might only win three trophies this year. Thanks to your REF we are going to finish second. Still, better than the University of Cambridge, I suppose.

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This is Dr Spock of the Vulcan Science Academy. I would just like to say that your REF programme is illogical. Why create so much work for so many people for so little outcome? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, or even Rishi Sunak. Also, you seem to have missed us off the results once again. Did you not get our submission? Don’t tell me it was lost in the transmat beam again—Mr Scott? We would totally have won the REF had you got it, even better than Imperial. It’s research, but not as we know it. Live long and prosper.

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This is Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of all the Scots and the Summer Isles. I’d like a word about anti-Scottish bias in your REF. I’m looking at the results here and it’s all Oxford this and University College London that. Don’t ye know that we invented universities. We have our own ancient institutions—St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley. Although I think that one’s called something else now, like the university of life or something. I’m just letting ye know that I’m not happy, and when I get down there and find the English bam that runs it, I’ll give this David Sweeney, or whatever his name is, a piece of my mind. Sounds like a right sassenach haddie. What ye need to run a funding exercise is a good Aberdonian who knows his QR from his PR.

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Er…hello, this is the chair of the arts and humanities subpanel. I’ve just seen the full published results. Thanks for having me and all the cups of tea and everything, but I’d just like to ask about that time when you sent me out the room to fetch some stripped toner for the photocopier, remember? And you all said, don’t worry take your time, we are just going to quality control the amount of 4* in each panel, and when I got back you said it was all done and I should probably just make an early start back to the train station. Yeah, well about that, I think you must have forgot to note down the results for my panel or something because it looks like we got a lot less 4* than anyone else. Hope that doesn’t financially disadvantage any of our subjects. I’ve got to go to the British Academy summer party this year, and the looks I’ll get from fellows could wilt a cucumber sandwich.

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This is Jeffrey Donaldson of the Democratic Unionist Party, and I would like to say, in the strongest possible terms, that we will not be taking up our seats in the Stormont Assembly until this is all sorted. This is of grave concern to the people of Northern Ireland, or at least the people of Northern Ireland who vote for me, which is less than there used to be, but you get the idea. Putting a REF border down the Irish Sea is totally unacceptable. That’s why we demand parity with the rest of the United Kingdom and all the 4* funding that we are rightly due. Now, if you could just bundle it into the Barnet consequentials so that the democratically elected representatives of Northern Ireland can decide on priorities for spending it, such as a renewable heat incentive scheme rather than on university research, that would be grand. God save the Queen.

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This is Michael Gove, congrats on REF 2021, major news story. But let’s all calm down, calm down, there’s lots of levelling up to get on with. Listen, I’ve heard that after this REF there may be an opening for a canny Aberdonian who knows how to make world-leading claims. Give me a call, yeh?

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Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union here. Once more it is left to us to tell it how it is. The REF is an overly complicated, bureaucratic nightmare that is obsessed with winners and losers. It should be scrapped, and the money spent solving the dispute over the Universities Superannuation Scheme, which, unlike the REF, is in no way an overly complicated, bureaucratic nightmare that is obsessed with…err, hold on…By the way, do you have the Sheffield business and management results there? How did our industrial relations case study do? 4* for four fights?

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This is David Sweeney here. I’m out of the office today. I’ve just been looking at the advert we have taken out to announce the REF outcome in the newspapers. “REF 2021 best results ever” is good but I’ve been told we can have some more words for the same price. So, can you change it to “REF 2021 best results ever. Used laptop for sale.”

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