This article examines how the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), along with the development of performance indicators, fits into the production of research within a changing policy context. The historical evolution of the RAE from 1985-2001 is considered, before looking specifically at how research output (in the form of journal publications)…

In the past decade, based on a change in paradigms in university policy, performance funding on a cantonal and central state level has been introduced in Switzerland: the universities have been granted higher autonomy, combined with global budgets and contract management by the responsible authorities (cantonal authorities). At the same time, the…

Every administrator bears primary responsibility for planning the accomplishment of those objectives and activities that fall in his area. When responsibility is relatively restricted, the informal and intuitive methods that constitute "sound judgment" suffice. However, as his area of responsibility widens to include increasingly complex…