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MeCCSA nominations to HEFCE for RAE panel members

The following letter was sent to HEFCE in relation to the request for nominations for the next RAE exercise:

‘As Chair of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association I am submitting a set of nominations for the 2008 RAE for UoA 66. They are for

• Peter Golding, University of Loughborough, as Chair
• Martin Barker, University of Aberystwith
• John Corner , University of Liverpool
• Robert Franklin, University of Sheffield
• Justin Lewis, University of Cardiff
• Mica Nava, University of East London
• Farrell Corcoran, Dublin City University, as an International representation

These nominations follow an open invitation to all our members for submissions to the Association’s executive, which then considered these at its meeting last week.  These nominations are thus an agreed list from the Association, which is, of course, the main subject association in this field in the UK. I should stress we are submitting the names of individuals on their personal merits, and not a set of names considered as a package to meet the needs of diverse representation and panel composition. For comment on the implications of this see notes 2 and 3 below.

You will note that the nominations includes a member of our executive.  The individual concerned left the room when their own nomination was considered.

At the Executive Committee meeting one or two points were made which I was asked to draw to the attention of the Council in considering RAE nominations:

1. We were struck by the relatively small number of nominations coming forward, and particularly by the fact that past panel members have not been willing to be nominated.  It is very apparent that the very high workload, and thus diversion from other work, especially research, associated with RAE panel membership, is causing great concern among potential panel members.  I am sure this is not unique to our field but may be something on which RAE managers might wish to reflect between now and 2008.

2. We are concerned that the panel should properly reflect “the diversity of the research community” in our field, as required in RAE 03/2004. The names that we put forward clearly could not constitute a legitimate panel on the grounds of gender imbalance.  In addition, we have identified some areas of the field which we feel are not adequately represented among the names we are putting forward.  These include, among others, film studies, textual and aesthetic work on media fictions, social sciences generally, social psychology, and media practice which are not sufficiently present among our nominations. While we accept that panel members have a broader interest than their own areas of research (and are confident that our nominees do have that) nevertheless we feel that these gaps will cause considerable anxiety in the field.

3. For this reason among others, we would welcome a further opportunity to discuss with the appointed chair of the sub panel, and the RAE managers, the final composition of the panel when provisional decisions are made.  It is of course vital that the panel commands the confidence of its constituency and we feel this would help enormously in that regard.

4. One final point is that we are aware that research into the media, particularly film studies, may well come under other panels including Panel M and UoA 63 and 65. We do believe it is important that membership of those panels properly includes the appropriate expertise in film and television research, particularly given that there will be no sub-sub-panels.

I hope these nominations and observations are helpful and look forward to our continued involvement in this important assessment process’

After the Executive Committee meeting which took these decisions on 10 September, Professor Angela McRobbie indicated her interest in being nominated. Given our comments about previous members of the panel and the gender imbalance, her name was forwarded to HEFCE for consideration.

Other nominations have been made by AMPE and the SCMA.

Christine Geraghty, Chairperson

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