Tertiary Education Commission

This paper discusses the outcome and likely implications of the new Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) in New Zealand, with particular reference to the results for, and possible impact upon, the social sciences. The paper begins with a brief outline of the rationale for, and design of, the PBRF and then examines the outcome of the first Quality Evaluation of research in the tertiary education sector, conducted in 2003. The paper includes consideration of the relative performance of the eight main social science subject areas, together with an analysis of how these subject areas compare with the other 33 disciplinary groupings (drawing upon a number of data sources in addition to the PBRF results). Attention is also given to what the 2003 Quality Evaluation reveals about the demographic structure of New Zealand’s academic community, with particular reference to the social sciences. The paper concludes by exploring the possible implications of the PBRF for the funding and conduct of research in the social sciences. The analysis indicates that although the research performance of the social sciences is generally superior to the average across the 41 subject areas assessed, the introduction of the PBRF is likely to result in the social sciences suffering a small net loss of funding. Nevertheless, the best performing of the eight social science subject areas, such as psychology, stand to gain in relative terms, as do the two universities with the highest quality scores