The current Knowledge Exchange Framework metrics will always leave the arts cluster at the bottom of the class
Dr Michelle Phillips, Head of Enterprise and Senior Lecturer in music psychology.
There cannot be a creative industries institution in the UK that is happy with the way the current Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) works. There: I’ve said it. The existing set of metrics mean the arts cluster is missing out on vital credit for the work it does, and an urgent review of the system is needed to level the playing field and to protect our reputations and our financial futures.
When KEF was unveiled as the latest analysis of the work universities do, it set out to assess how an institution’s research and who they share it with is valuable both to the economy and society. Perhaps the intention itself is deliberately vague; as individuals, we have differing perspectives on what is valuable to society dependant on privately held opinions and the ongoing issues of the day. What is completely clear, though, is how heavily the KEF metrics measure success in largely monetary terms.
Income is a valuable outcome of knowledge exchange (KE) – no one would deny that, especially as higher education (HE) increasingly feels the funding squeeze. But should the bottom line be elevated to a position of being an ultimate marker of success for our research work? We believe not, and this isn’t some paltry pram tantrum from the arts cluster – when our reputations are judged on a scale that skews economic and so commonly works to our disadvantage, our question is a vital battle cry from the group of specialist institutions that, according to Times Higher Education (THE), ‘performed poorest in the results, with very low engagement in the research and partnerships and the working with business categories’.
As it stands, unless we earn money from our KE we will be unable to represent our valuable work in this year’s HEBCI return. This will be made especially challenging given discussions around the pausing of Table 5, which captures data on the number of people who have engaged with public facing activity events (e.g., audiences, listener numbers) – and in which we placed in the top five per cent of the country last year. Yes, we have the KEF dashboard and the narrative statements where we can enthuse about the ways in which we use the drive for KE to make an impact, but who actually reads these? Our creative industries institutions do not need ‘to use these exercises to improve our own systems’, to cite another THE headline, we need the recognition and rewards for what is world-leading KE with impact on the world at its heart.
The HEBCI return is designed to be easily auditable; figures must match institutional annual financial returns. Why, when the REF and TEF are such rigorous, systematic, and comprehensive exercises then, in which reward is given based on a holistic suite of submissions and evidence, is KEF heavily based on income? Are we avoiding a proper review of KEF in our institutions because it’s difficult, and the numbers of people outside of our institutions impacted by our work is too hard to evidence? If so, we need to try harder, and to review and reward KE holistically.
Many of the RNCM’s longest running and most rewarding initiatives which our students participate in and pioneer, and from which our partners benefit, are those with strong social impact. While large Russell Group institutions might focus their efforts on start-ups and high profit IP, we are composing new music to help people with Parkinson’s to overcome freezing using music, or we’re making music with children in hospitals to improve quality of life. This work has a powerful indirect economic impact by relieving costs elsewhere, for example in the NHS through preventative and complementary interventions, or in crime reduction through interventions that are a catalyst for societal cohesion. The Government has identified the creative industries as one of eight growth driving sectors in its new Industrial Strategy, and every day we are directly supporting the potential and future of that creative economy.
We’ve also enjoyed several non-commercial KE partnerships, entered into without financial incentive, including most recently my co-design of the Turn It Up: The Power of Music exhibition for the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester; it featured my research (and a video of me explaining it), and during the two years it showed in both Manchester and London it attracted almost 147,000 visitors from around the world. UKRI points to the wealth of KE happening across the UK, but some parts of this are more focussed on income and others more on society and making the world a better place; funding from our KEF metrics far from recognises this in any equal way.
If we see KEF as being solely about universities bringing in money, supplementing their tuition fees and other income, and making what they do into a product – sellable, attractive to customers – we miss the opportunity to create wide-reaching transformation in our sector, in our graduates, and in our world. Conservatoires are incubators for student KE, for specialist skills and facilities that our local and national communities and businesses can and do benefit from, and we use every opportunity we can to connect with people outside of our four walls. We must start thinking of KE as having the power of impact which may generate income, rather than the other way around.
Despite the richness of our knowledge exchange and its focus on opening up access (at the RNCM, we make sure that students share their knowledge with the general public on a daily basis), and prioritisation of impact for social good, we are often not well represented or served by current KEF metrics. And yet music has been a cornerstone of the curriculum of Europe’s founding universities since Medieval times, and not for its commodification and marketisation potential. I am extremely proud to work in HE, and of the impact that our institutions and graduates have on the world. We now need to work on recognising and rewarding KE and its impact properly, in line with the world-leading HE sector that we are. After all, we will not be the ones who’ll determine the values of the next generation as they face their own unique societal challenges around climate change, the cost of living, healthcare, and international migration, nor can we know whether their solutions will be measurable in neat and meaningful financial terms.
16 October 2024