Research assessment in the UK and Italy: costly and difficult, but probably worth it (at least for a while)

tThis paper provides a comparative analysis of the development of the UK and Italian university researchfunding systems with a special focus on Peer Review-Based Research Assessment (PRBRA) and its cost.Much of the debate surrounding the value of performance-based allocation systems hinges on the dis-advantages versus the benefits of their implementation, and there is very little evidence on either theirabsolute cost or their cost relative to other allocation systems. Our objective is to fill this gap, collatingthe best possible estimates of the costs of alternative research funding methods to inform the ongoingpolicy debate. First, we compare funding in the UK and Italy during the period 2005–2012 and analyzethe development of performance-based allocation in the two systems. Second, based on public reportsand documents collected from universities, we discuss the public agency and university costs of RAE2008and REF2014 and provide some estimates for VQR2012. We find that RAE2008 costs accounted for lessthan 1% of the total performance allocation in the related period while the VQR2012 efficiency ratio isestimated at around 2.5%. Finally, we compare the costs and efficiency ratios of PRBRA with metrics-basedassessment and Research Council allocations and show that costs increase going from metrics to PRBRAto Research Council allocation.