From what I can gather, every staff member hates the Performance Based Research Fund. The PBRF is a contestable government fund. The more researchers of certain qualities at an institution, the more funding it gets. I think it is yet another example of Goodhart’s Law. The University of Canterbury is now instituting a $40000 fine for colleges not having enough recognised researchers under this scheme. I do wonder how this will affect the recently merged college of Education, given that its primary function is teacher education and not research.
The PBRF is a bit of an anomoly. One of the reasons why the funding model was shifted away from bums on seats was because the universities and other tertiary institutions would spend a lot of money on recruitment to compete for students. The PBRF has the same thing going on, but researchers on seats instead.
Posted by ivorytowerkiwi 
