Institutional hierarchies and research impact: new academic currencies, capital and position-taking in UK higher education

Abstract

Globally, performance-based research funding aims to support the most deserving academic institutions and researchers. However, overcoming entrenched assumptions about quality is a persistent challenge for higher education research policies worldwide; traditionally powerful institutions tend to maintain dominance. Research impact as a performance criterion presents an opportunity for position-taking through success according to non-academic criteria. Could impact-oriented research funding challenge institutional hierarchies? The UK university system presents an instructive case study for exploring this question. However, exposing the effects of such performance-based funding on institutional stratification requires focusing on the interface between institutions and disciplines. A Bourdieusian analysis of 53 cases of research-based impact on higher education policy/practice revealed the differential capital that researchers from more and less ‘prestigious’ universities mobilise when generating research impact. By uncovering how impact reinforces disparities in research power between UK institutions, the study contributes to understanding of sectoral reproduction through discipline-level mediation of research policy.

Keywords:

• Research Excellence Framework
• research policy
• impact
• universities
• Bourdieu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on the REF2014 impact case studies repository website (http://impact.ref.ac.uk). These data are available in the public domain.

Notes

1 Where a case study was based on subject-specific research, it was included only if some element of the research or impact extended beyond that subject. For example, one case study based on mathematics pedagogy was included because it related to the teaching of mathematical skills to non-specialists in other university disciplines, while we excluded one case study whose focus on creative writing did not extend beyond its home discipline of English literature.