Will REF ‘portability’ plans hobble early career academics?

The problem with reviews like Stern is that the group doing it is packed with the "good and the great" and those in high administrative positions. The voice of those effected is hardly heard since all they do is accept facile institutional responses and hold a few rather meaningless focus groups. It is also the case that "Proposal 3" stops game playing by individuals (who are clearly "rent seekers") but just replaces this with "rent grabbers" (i.e., the institutions). It is hardly unexpected that a committee packed with VCs would want to capture the rents associated with those pesky faculty wanting to be paid for their IP. And who more easily exploited than those at the bottom of the food chain. Rest assured that those failing to meet their REF quota will find themselves either on the breadline or pushed into teaching positions so that they do not count. Under the old rules at least they could move someplace else.

I also have a hard time seeing how this doesn't just create a new set of rules to be gamed, with power having largely been shifted from individuals to institutions. Of course the institution where the work was done should get credit, but I can't see how the net effect of this won't be a pre-REF hiring freeze (don't bring in anyone you won't get credit for) and a purge of research contracts (to shift people who are seen as underperforming off of the REF books and on to teaching contracts before some arbitrary deadline). If units had to/got to share outputs (eg. both got credit: one for producing great researchers, the other for hiring them) then you might see a decline in gaming, but as long as one unit 'wins' and another 'loses' money because of single individuals then I don't see how this is a real improvement. The work I do today, three years after leaving my first institution, is still profoundly informed by (and collaborative with) that unit. Shouldn't they still get credit? Shouldn't everyone passing through an institution in a five year period count to make every hire count?

The discussion about portability is tackling the wrong problem. We aren't in academia for the money. And moving institutions is a great upheaval for many people. Most colleagues who have left have done so because they weren't getting sufficient recognition or opportunities at their current institution. So if the problem is lousy management by university managers, then how will this improve matters? I was turned down for a promotion after the targets were shifted, even though I was one of few submitted to the REF. Hence my loyalty of 10 years has been severely tested. Why should I be punished by making my CV less attractive? I think this proposal has implications for restriction of practice and should be strongly fought against.