Universities’ REF policies are hitting non-researchers for six

The minute funding follows teaching assessments then sense might descend upon the REF/TEF landscape. (Not to mention KEF!) Unfortunately, as a sector we are not willing to be subject to such scrutiny. TEF is a pretty meaningless proxy.

The same logic should work towards all components - if someone is a brilliant lecturer, why should they need to excel at teaching or supervision?

I fear all the use of these metrics are the same old same old. Ostensibly meritocratic sticks used to beat anyone with by increasingly corporate management. Unfortunately because so many academics are possessed by the spirit of Boxer in Animal Farm, they submit to the self destructive mantra of I must work harder. Work harder for who? Universities on the whole do not care about you, your career or your ambitions. They only care in as much that they require you to contribute to institutions and their various bottom lines. I had enough of the endless jumping through hoops only to find no reward for the exercise. It really upto academics to challenge this and not just through strikes but by setting genuine criteria for academic work. This isn't easy but as it stands the system is not structured to support genuine intellectual endeavour.

I don't understand how we can have university lecturers who don't do research. It seems impossible. If you're not an active member of your field, how can you be up to date? If students are behind taught by teachers who no longer do anything but teach, then uni is just three more years of secondary school.

At Oxford we are nearly all teaching focused, but we get to rely on the handicap of the brand. We teach two to three subjects and thus most of our teaching is not research led. There are a few big name professors but many of us using that title have only a handful of top peer reviewed papers. The college system means we often teach like a teaching fellow at a post 1992 university.