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:
-
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. -
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. -
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. -
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