Abstract

British universities have just gone through their third Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The `research output' (i.e. publications) of every participating department has been graded by panels of `experts' on a seven point scale. The purpose of this massive operation is to provide a basis for distributing funds for research. In theory, the idea of allocating these scarce resources according to the standard of the work produced seems fair and reasonable; but in philosophy, at least, that is not how things work out in practice.