Research rank not worth it say varsities

Universities have hit out at the multimillion-dollar cost of complying with a ranking exercise, saying it brought little or no immediate extra funding.

Cost estimates released by seven universities show they each spent between $116,000 and $1.63 million to participate in the Performance-Based Research Fund exercise.

Most spent more on taking part in the exercise than they gained in funding increases for 2004.

The first PBRF report was released last month, and ranked tertiary institutions by the research achievements of more than 8000 academics nationwide.

It was used by the Tertiary Education Commission to divide $18.2 million of extra funding this year, rising to $185 million by 2007.

The ranking process was already under fire because many tertiary institutions and academics said it was flawed and unfair.

Several universities indicated the true cost of participating in the process was actually much higher, as they did not include the thousands of hours put in by academic staff compiling portfolios and research data.

Although the PBRF-based funding component will increase next year, and university allocations will rise, the process must be repeated in 2006.

The University of Auckland, which topped the rankings, said a conservative estimate of the cost was $400,000, not including staff time for the managers and 1411 academics involved. It received an extra $216,115 for 2004.

The university said data collection for the PBRF was "an enormous undertaking which involved hundreds of people around the university over a long period of time".

The University of Canterbury, which was ranked for research quality, said PBRF cost it $440,000, double the amount budgeted for and excluding 17,500 hours of academic staff time involved.

Canterbury's second placing has secured TEC funding of $2.15 million for 2004. That figure is only a 2.1 per cent increase on the previous year, meaning the costs of participating outweigh immediate funding gains.

But Canterbury vice-chancellor Professor Roy Sharp said the good results outweighed the costs.

- NZPA