against differential research funding

Against Differential Research FundingAuthor(s): David M. SmithSource: Area, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 79-83Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003509 .

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79

Observations

Against differential research funding

David M Smith, Department of Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Road, London El 4NS

As departments of geography (and all else) are gearing up to the next round of UFC research ratings, it would be a pity to proceed as though this was now an uncontested part of academic life. An earlier debate in Area focused largely on technical aspects of the rating process, and some of the implications (for example Smith 1986, 1988). This paper takes another line, by questioning differential research funding of departments on grounds of both efficiency and equity.

It will be assumed from the outset that there is a generally acceptable way of identifying research quality, and that those responsible for arriving at research ratings have the knowledge and judgement required for the task. The final ratings are therefore taken to be an accurate and indeed correct measure of the relative research standing of British geography departments. The purpose of these clearly unrealistic assumptions is to avoid repetition of a critique of the measurement process itself, in favour of an argument that to distribute research resources differentially among departments cannot be defended by criteria relating either to efficiency (in the sense of maximising research returns to investment) or equity (fairness or justice to the academic staff involved). If this case holds up, then the technical objections which undermine the assumptions outlined above strengthen the case for abandoning the entire research rating project and the funding selectivity which goes with it.

The space available in this note is not sufficient for the full development of my arguments. However, enough can be said to challenge those with contrary views to respond.

Efficiency

How could a fixed budget for research be allocated among university departments so as to maximise the production of research, the quantity/quality of which is assumed to be the subject of valid and accurate measurement? The most obvious source of guidance is neo-classical economic theory, under which efficiency is achieved when the marginal productivity of all productive units is equal. In other words, no net increases in output can be produced by reallocating resources from one department to another: the state of equilibrium supposedly arrived at by the operation of perfect free markets.

An obvious problem with this formulation is that no such market exists for academic research, and it is inconceivable that empirical data would enable the UFC to administer equal departmental productivity at the margin by central planning.

One possible response would be to simulate an ' internal market', as has been



80 Observations

attempted in the National Health Service. Thus the research councils could become purchasers of all research needing money, putting out precise specifications of the required research product for competitive tender, and contracting with the least-cost provider. However, this is inconsistent with the producer initiative which has hitherto prevailed in academic research, the increasingly pro-active role of research councils notwithstanding, and an obvious affront to academic freedom. There is also the problem, amply demonstrated in the NHS, that quasi-markets are subject to all

manner of distortions in addition to the well-known imperfections of actual markets in practice as opposed to textbook theory. Whether implemented through markets or administration, the efficient allocation

of resources depends on the kind of production functions which prevail. As this is a matter on which there appears to be no reliable knowledge with respect to the production of research, we are left to speculate. Suppose that there are variations in

efficiency among departments of geography, with the most efficient research producer being the University of Mile End. If linear production functions prevail, such that increasing the resources available to this one department continues to produce more/better research than spending the money anywhere else, then the efficiency solution maximising aggregate research output will be for the University of

Mile End to have all the money available and other institutions none. However, in reality research production functions are likely to be non-linear, as in

other spheres of activity, incorporating diminishing marginal returns to additional investment. The point will therefore come when it would be more efficient to invest elsewhere than to continue to pour money into the already well-funded University of

Mile End. Identifying this point in practice is likely to be very difficult, however. When the problem is expanded to require judgements among all geography departments with respect to their capacity to transform money into research at the

margin, under conditions of variable efficiency and diminishing returns, we are back to the problem usually left to market forces, in the face of the implausibility of a human calculus.

In the absence of any more persuasive technical argument, we might turn to intuition. Surely, it is self-evident that departments producing more/better research (measured by the universally agreed ratings) will continue to do this if favoured in resource allocation. There are (at least) two objections. The first has already been hinted at: high-rated departments may already be operating at levels where diminishing returns mean that it could be more efficient to favour other departments with lower (if not lowest) ratings. Specifically, more/better research might be produced by investing further money in grade 4 departments rather than 5s. The second objection is that high-rated departments may be doing more/better research simply because they were consistently better funded than others before differential rewards followed research rating. For example, if the geography department at the

University of Mile End has had an excellent library, fine laboratories, skilled support staff and very generous consumables and equipment grants (per staff member) for the past few decades, then its staff might be expected to produce more/better research than those in a less well endowed department, even if they are themselves no more talented as scholars. It may be more efficient to build up the equivalent of the

University of Mile End's infrastructure elsewhere than to add to it. Before turning to equity, an efficiency case for equal (per capita) research funding

may be suggested. If all staff are equally talented (or if unequal talent is evenly distributed among departments), and if decreasing returns prevail on identical departmental production functions, the most efficient allocation of resources among



Observations 81

departments is equality. This is the case in a utilitarian calculus where the decreasing marginal utility of money requires an equal distribution of income among identical consumers, if collective utility or welfare is to be maximised (see Smith 1994, 62-5 for further explanation). While the underlying assumptions are unlikely to represent the actual situation in British geography departments, they seem no less realistic than

what has to be assumed, or known, to justify unequal resource allocation on efficiency grounds.

The onus of proof therefore rests on those who would maintain that differential resource allocation enhances efficiency in the production of research. What is the

theory, or empirical evidence, that this is true?

Equity

Questions of equity, or social justice, hardly seem to enter into consideration of research ratings and differential funding. But they should, if only because some staff in some departments feel unfairly treated. Even if everyone is convinced about the accuracy and correctness of individual departmental ratings (as assumed above), a sense of injustice may still prevail within departments with low ratings if there is uncertainty if not incredulity about the general efficiency benefits of differential funding.

However, we will give the case for resource selectivity the best chance of success by assuming (contrary to the argument of the previous section) that it does in fact maximise the quantity/quality of research produced, and ask whether this is necessarily socially just. The conventional neo-classical model which seems to underpin the efficiency argument for selectivity is indifferent to distributional inequality, and would therefore condone some participants getting little or nothing for research (as for life) if this was consistent with maximisation of output in aggregate. Such an outcome is as unappealing in academic research as in life in general, even if dressed up in the version of welfare theory in which the best of all worlds is supposed to incorporate distribution derived from community preferences.

A rights-based perspective could counter that everyone is entitled at least to some basic minimum research support by virtue of their identity as scholar, just as being human may be held to require that basic needs are met even at some efficiency cost. How high the minimum should be, above the academic equivalent of survival, is a matter for debate, rather like the security safety-net to be provided for all before the rest of society's product goes up for competition. However, the fewer resources there are and the wider they have to be distributed, the less scope there is for large inequalities. In any event, as Barry (1989, 3) asserts with respect to social justice in general, ' the central issue ... is the defensibility of unequal relations among people' (emphasis added). The onus is as much on those prepared to accept a high degree of inequality in research support to make their case, as on those who argue for a basic

minimum to defend and define it. Some might find a persuasive equity case in favour of differential and possibly

highly unequal funding in the libertarianism associated with Robert Nozick (1974). This perspective would see departments entitled to whatever benefits they could gain from their resources and labour, within a minimal set of constraints protecting property rights and ensuring the same liberty for all, provided that such initial

advantages as the good library and laboratories at the University of Mile End had been justly acquired. Yet, the fact that wealthy benefactors, influence with the old

UGC or simply good fortune may have given staff of this university more favourable



82 Observations

facilities for doing research than others elsewhere hardly constitutes a moral case for further favourable funding. To argue otherwise is like asserting that people born with

more resources at their disposal than others are morally entitled to benefit therefrom, irrespective of the impact on the well-being of others. Common sporting analogies, referring to the same starting line and level playing field, underline the unfairness of unequal initial endowment in a competitive situation.

Another possible justification for inequality, with considerable intuitive appeal, is that everyone gains from it. Thus, if highly-rated departments got more funding but none got less, then the outcome could be considered just by the familiar Pareto criterion. But the actual operation of selective research funding under tight resource constraints produces losers as well as gainers: the money available does not necessarily expand to ensure otherwise. Indeed, if the outcome of the rating exercise is to come up with broadly agreed (if not rigidly fixed) proportions of departments in each category, which is the only way of avoiding the incredulity which differences among disciplines provokes, then the exercise resembles the process of grading on a curve. The moral implications are explained thus by Hinman (1994, 77): 'When grades in a class are curved in such a way that a certain percentage of the class must receive As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs, we set up a competitive model of learning in which one person's progress necessarily is bought at the price of someone else's (relative) failure . . . it is not in your best interest to have your fellow students learn well '. Similarly, the more/better the research of other geography departments, the lower the prospects of the University of Mile End getting its 4 or 5. A system in which our departmental self-interest is bound up with others doing badly is surely objectionable from a moral as well as a scientific point of view, yet this is the nature of research ratings (in the absence of any absolute standards associated with specific classes).

A final possibility is that the influential theory of justice elaborated by John Rawls (1971) might help us defend selective funding. Rawls' famous difference principle provides a more demanding justification of inequality than everyone gaining: it must be in the interest of the worst-off. If some departments get nothing under selective research funding, it is hard to see how they could be worse-off under any alternative arrangements-unless we believe that the entire university system would have paid dearly for not embracing the government's competitive ideology. The worst-off departments would gain from a more egalitarian strategy, unless selective funding actually increases the resources available for (re)distribution.

It will be recalled that Rawls required people to agree to a social contract arrived at behind a ' veil of ignorance ' as to their actual position in society, and it would be interesting to speculate about how this thought experiment might work out over selective research funding. What scale of funding differentiation would staff agree to, if they could as easily find themselves in a 1 as a 5? Would the staff of departments very likely to gain 4 or 5 in the next exercise be as well disposed to the scheme if they faced an unknown possibility of ending up in a 1 or 2? If not, the principle of universalisability requires the scheme's rejection, in favour of equality.

A persuasive test of any social arrangement, in the Rawlsian tradition, is its acceptability to those who suffer under it. Barry (1989, 292) puts this as follows: ' if we ask what we are saying about an action or an institution when we say it is unjust ... [w]e are claiming that it cannot be defended publicly-that the principles of justice it instantiates could reasonably be rejected by those who do badly under it'. Is selective research funding defended by staff in departments with low ratings?

Would those with no research funding defend the privileges of those in a department



Observations 83

rated 5? A variation on this formulation is offered by O'Neil (1992, 68), who invites us to ask to what extent arrangements could have been refused or renegotiated by those they constrain. The UFC scheme has been subject to refusal or renegotiation

by no-one, let alone those constrained by low or zero research support. Research ratings and selective funding have simply been imposed, and dictatorship is a poor prescription for social justice.

This cursory review of how differential research funding might stand up to scrutiny on equity ground has found it hard to sustain a case for unequal resource allocation. Indeed, more could be said in favour of equality. Insofar as the departmental research support available to new entrants to the profession is something over which they have no control, very much a matter of the good fortune of obtaining a post in a department rated 5 rather than 3, for example, differential research funding is blatantly unfair to this generation. Past and present members of staff might be held responsible for a department's research rating; future staff certainly cannot. To apply differential funding to new entrants according to the department where they work is as clearly an affront to equal opportunities as it would be to discriminate on grounds of gender or race.

Conclusion

No convincing argument can be made for differential research funding, on either efficiency or equity grounds, even under assumptions favourable to such a case. Those who support selective resource allocation according to UFC research rating should explain why.

References Barry B (1989) Theories ofjustice (Harvester-Wheatsheaf, London) Hinman L M (1994) Ethics: a pluralistic approach to moral theory (Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort

Worth, Texas) Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia (Basic Books, New York)

O'Neill 0 (1992) 'Justice, gender and international boundaries' in Attfield R and Wilkins B (eds)

International justice and the Third World (Routledge, London), 50-76 Rawls J (1971) A theory ofjustice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts) Smith D M (1986) ' UGC research ratings: pass or fail? ' Area 18, 247-9

Smith D M (1988) 'On academic performance' Area 20, 3-13

Smith D M (1994) Geography and social justice (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford)

The Post-It Generation

J Douglas Porteous, Department of Geography, University of Victoria, PO Box

3050, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P5, Canada

Evil news rides post, while good news baits Milton, Samson Agonistes

Slalom! It's hard to navigate; there's a thicket of posts. First they came slowly and were concrete, a kind of postprandial ' afters ': postimpressionism (impressive), postwar ('til the next one), postindustrial (all is techne), postcolonial (including neo-), postcommunist (well, not quite, but nearly), postsuburban (where next?).



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