Step Change

Imagine the Vice-Chancellors of 17 post-92 UK universities all gathered together by a powerful oversight body. The body tells them in no uncertain terms to increase their collective research output by a factor of 4 in 7 years. They would be unlikely to welcome the challenge and equally unlikely to succeed, and, perhaps some "change management" would follow.

"Change management" has an ominous feel. Too often, change management is about managing stagnation and decline. But it need not be so and to be fair, 17 VCs of post-92 universities collectively increased their research output by a factor of 4 in 7 years and no one seems to have noticed, probably including the VCs themselves.

Change was “managed” in the research output of post-92 UK universities. It is a satisfying example because it is clear, but it comes in steps followed by stagnation and I am not sure anyone is watching.

What are the data: relative research output. 

How was the data obtained? The names of a set of post-92 universities were searched using Web of Science, this was followed by a citation analysis to obtain a plot of “published items in each year” going back to 1993.  This provides an index of output over the years. The results were aggregated and scaled such that 1993 was 1. The results show an aggregate of a set of 17 universities.

Why not look at individual institutions? Looking at a single university anything can be explained by the brlliance, mediocrity, or stupidity of local management. Indeed within the data there are individual successes and failures. However, looking at a set of universities, broader policy can be probed and larger bodies have a case to answer, or celebrate. The data here are meant to address the latter.

What is in the data? The post-92 universities had a seven year “bull market” for scholarly output beginning in 1993 and continuing until 2000.  This was followed by stagnation until 2005-2006. Possibly due to the introduction of top-up fees, a 4 year period of weaker growth followed. Inflation and Parkinson's law have probably lead to current stagnation.

Is this special? Yes, I really do not think a sitting VC would give a warm welcome to a challenge to repeat the feat, but it was done. The combined output is substantive, but the pattern of growth followed by stagnation is worth thinking about.

The change beginning when the "New Universities" were created is less clear. It may reflect a change in funding model. Any readers with data to add would be appreciated as there is a bit of a puzzle figuring out why the sector grew so fast and why it reached a plateau so soon. Had growth continued steadily at the rate of those first 7-8 years, many would be putting out over 1000 papers a year and the UK would have more elite universities. The shape of the change suggests policy issues common to the sector that need identifying and addressing.

Comment: For scale, the approximate combined output is roughly 1.8 times that of the University of Warwick over the same period. Were a similar feat to be repeated, the combined output would be roughly 10 times.  What is needed to kick start that kind of growth again? 

Comment: Where I have looked at financial reports from within the set of 17 post-92’s, there seems to be a maximum percentage of research grants and contracts at about 10% of income. Two to five percent is more common. The greatest number of papers found against the search criteria used here is ~500/yr with 50-300/yr more typical.

Comment for parents and prospective students: In my view, scholarly output and influence reflects the overall long term health of a university. The trends seen reflect changes in funding and administration over the period. Although you will be paying for it, it is likely that increased funds into universities due to the restructuring of the fee regime will improve the health of Universities across the UK and the impact should be clearly visible 3-4 years from now. This should benefit you. Take an active interest in how those additional funds are used. Would you take out a long term loan for tablet PC? Weigh that up against taking out a loan for a degree having enduring quality. The two are not mutually exclusive but..., a university of 25,000 returning £200/student in tablet PCs has lost £5 Million from such things as its library collection, buildings, and staff time.

Fine Print: 

The universities included were all former polytechnics. They are: Aston University,Coventry University,De Montfort University, Kingston University, Leeds Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, Oxford Brookes University, Robert Gordon University, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Central Lancashire, University of Hertfordshire, University of Huddersfield, University of Plymouth, University of Sunderland, University of Wolverhampton. Based on this list you may decide whether it is representative.

These data are approximate but I believe them to be indicative. Individuals seeking to reproduce these values may get slightly different values due to the date on which the search is done and the data to which they have access. The version of Web of Science I use does not give a numerical printout of the data used here, rather they are provided in bar charts. I made a best estimate of the values on the bar chart for this study.