PBRF: What's hiding in the hype?
Results from the PBRF Quality Evaluation (QE) came out last week, and Universities began immediately to spin the result to their favour. Do they (the people claiming to represent the university) get it right? Should everyday academic staff be questioning, now that universities have pitched their spin on the results? This matters, because $173 million per year is at stake, of which $6 million goes to other tertiary providers and $167 million goes to universities. So I'll focus only on Universities here, but congratulate other tertiary providers who got a piece of the pie. Also, let me note this is just the QE and not the other large part of the PBRF pie linked to ERI (research income) and RDC (degree completions). The hype: this tends to be universities finding and pushing their strengths. If I listen to this at Waikato, I hear about subjects that held their place, and those that increased. But let me just say, "Wow!" .. um ... no one is saying we lost almost a million dol