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Related background for PACE -QMUL/Principal Simon Gaskell/Richard Horton/Lancet

Y

Yogi

Senior Member
Messages
1,132
Just some background info on the above and their mindset and how this might play out.

QMUL appears to be a very badly run organisation and that is why Peter White has not been reigned in and allowed to run amok with the PACE trial, harming and smearing patients and racking up £250,000 legal bill.

QMUL have sacked good researchers based on "a count of the number of papers published, and on the impact factor of the journal in which the papers appeared."

That is all that counts- they have sought to go up the league tables and other ethical considerations have just fallen by the way side. It has all been about the money that Peter White can bring in from the likes of the DWP, never mind the ethics of it.


Controversy[edit]
One of Queen Mary University of London’s strategic aims is to build upon the institution's global research impact as measured by, among other things, ranking in league tables.

In 2012, during a reorganisation in The School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, critics claimed that several staff members were dismissed on grounds of redundancy while similar posts were advertised, and the grounds for dismissal were based on a count of the number of papers published, and on the impact factor of the journal in which the papers appeared. These criteria are widely regarded as being poor indicators of the worth of individual scientists.[3] Articles and letters in The Times,[4] and in Times Higher Education,[5] and on blogs discussed the claims.[6] Queen Mary has responded to these criticisms with a Frequently Asked Questions document[7] and a comment piece by Simon Gaskell in Times Higher Education.[8]
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Gaskell#Controversy

Further reading here:

http://www.dcscience.net/2012/08/16...en-mary-university-of-london-makes-a-cock-up/

http://blog.jfallen.org/2015/06/10/the-devil-in-the-detail-fanismissirlis/

Queen Mary: nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition by Prof John Allen and Prof Fanis Missirlis
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60697-7/fulltext

Bullying at Barts by Richard Horton
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60434-6/abstract


Professor Fanis Missirlis has tweeted this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/774092785045508096

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/774116768172285952


Thanks to Professor Fanis Missirlis who brought this info to us

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/773869448205770752

 
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J.G

J.G

Senior Member
Messages
162
Yogi said:
QMUL have sacked good researchers based on "a count of the number of papers published, and on the impact factor of the journal in which the papers appeared."
Click to expand...

By way of more context: this is happening across the breadth of UK higher education. Since the introduction of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) a few years ago, UK universities are ranked by the government on the basis of research quality and output. Ranking affects funding.

IIRC, the next evaluation is coming up in 2018. Already, universities are scrambling to attract academics with high volume and/or high quality research outputs. Hiring researchers and/or lecturers on 0-hour contracts just so that the university can submit their research under its name as part of the REF is becoming commonplace. In tandem, academics are under enormous pressure to put their work out there, imperfect if need be and, apparently, to the point of immorality.

High quality publications have always been the key to a successful academic career. However, the REF has distorted this to 'publish now or perish now' - ethics falling by the wayside amongst all parties involved.

Combine this with vested interests and the fact that negative results don't get published much, and you have all the ingredients for controversy. QMOL is the poster child for how misguided responses to misdirected incentives combine to make one big stinking mess - with us as victims.
 
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