Short-term Incentives of Research Evaluations: Evidence from the UK Research Excellence Framework

Event Date: 23 February 2022

Speaker: Dr Moqi Xu, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Time: 2pm (Zoom details emailed to faculty the week prior, otherwise please email donna.irving@strath.ac.uk)

Abstract:

Do performance-based research funding systems change research incentives? Studying 3,597,272 publications by UK researchers subject to the UK’s governmental university assessment, we find that it pushes researchers towards producing more research, but at lower quality. Publications just before assessment deadlines obtain substantially fewer citations and are published in venues with lower impact. These trends reverse abruptly after the deadlines. We discuss different factors that contribute to this observation and conclude that research quality and topic choice have to be among them. Our results highlight that where such shifts in research incentives are not intended, they might require balancing by additional incentives for exploratory, long-term oriented research.

Published: 16 February 2022