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The Tantalean punishment of research evaluation:
the impact agenda as the new normal

Rene Brauer(a) & Mirek Dymitrow(b)

a [corresponding author] Visiting Scholar, Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland,
Joensuu, Finland; E-mail address: rene.brauer@uef.fi,

b Linnaeus University; Department of Cultural Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Humanities,
Universitetsplatsen 1, 352 52 Växjö, Sweden, E-mail address: mirek.dymitrow@lnu.se

Abstract

This paper deals with the complex web of incentives and punishments that discursively discipline modern higher education and research. Specifically, we situate our analysis into the UK’s nationalised evaluation of research (impact) and its subsequent impact agenda. We utilise the ‘discipline’ of Tourism studies as our research subject, and contrast the internal discussions around disciplinary status with the disciplinary mechanisation institutions are subjugated towards. Our results show that the impact agenda has become the new status quo, and is now staunchly ingrained into the disciplinary infrastructure of modern (tourism) education and research institutions. The originality of our work, lies in our hermeneutical approach that allows us to situate these developments into a wider context of both cultural evolution and scholarly discipline. We conclude, that there are indeed fundamental challenges to the integrity of higher education and research that arise, but the nature of the challenges is not new per se.

Keywords:

Research impact, research evaluation, evolutionary thinking, discourse analysis, metascience, mythomathics

1. Introduction

UK academics learned on the 27th of January 2020 that the British research councils released an unexpected announcement saying that the section of ‘pathways to impact’ were to be dropped from funding applications as early as the 1st of March 2020.[1] The announcement happened due to an internal memo leaking which discussed such changes. Hence, the short time frame was an attempt of damage control in order to mitigate the confusion and the uncertainty around the research impact agenda.[2] Whilst this paper is departing from the specific UK higher education and research environment, its implication on the dynamics of discipline, evaluation of research quality, and the created incentives/disincentives for higher education and research stretch far beyond. Specifically, we elucidate the process of normalisation that occurs when incentive structures change, and which in turn can create inappropriate impulses and counter-productive, unintended long-term consequences. After all, the assessment regime around research impact provides “powerful incentives, with the potential to define the criteria of success for academic research.”[3]

Modern higher education and research finds itself in an increasingly competitive environment, egged on by key performance indicators and other forms of commodification of research, education and the evaluation of their outcomes.[4] For individual researchers, such disciplinary pressures can have adverse effects on higher education, the motivations behind scholarly pursuits, and their working relationships.[5] Thereby, the collective academic labour is increasingly scrutinised in the name of transparency and accountability,[6] while the workload requirements are steadily rising[7], that all in combination are causing these potential adverse effects for the academics.[8] This paper argues that such a ’punishment‘ represents a complex equation that arises out of: scholars’ own (normalised) ambitions, the mechanics of modern higher education, research evaluation, institutions need to justify themselves, and the basic requirement that institutions and individuals need resources in order to sustain themselves. We explore this complex dynamic through a case study of studying the ‘discipline’ of tourism studies within the UK and its nationalised research assessment effect on this scholarly community; we argue the disputed status of tourism studies[9] as a discipline makes it a suitable research subject as many of the aforementioned conflicts have not (yet) been normalised.

The aim of this empirically informed conceptual paper is to investigate the normalisation occurring within an entire research branch, i.e. tourism studies. More specifically, by addressing the following research question: what is the source of the normalisation that sets the boundary conditions of modern scholarly pursuits?  In other words, we want to glean insights into the dynamics around normalisation that are driving the ever-stringent regimentation of modern research and education. Our research objectives are threefold. Firstly, we situate the contemporary dynamics of our modern research culture within an overarching historical context of Western cultural development. Secondly, we theoretically elaborate on how changes in disciplinary routines lead to the normalisation of a new status quo. Thirdly, we depart from so-called ‘research impact templates’ produced by Higher Education Institutions (HEI) within tourism research and submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) for evaluation; using those templates, we empirically investigate how normalisation changes discursive regimes.

2. Background: Nothing new under the sun –  from ancient Greece to modern academia.

The first objective of this paper is to situate the changes to the culture of higher education in a broader historical context. Modern conceptualisations of rationality, science and democratic social organisation tend to deprive historical (but also mythological) accounts of the human condition of their explanatory power.[10] Such epistemological discretisation is usually borne out of notions of (scientific) progress,[11] which inadvertently cast past individuals as ‘deluded’ by dogma and consequently portrays their struggles as ‘petty’ and/or ‘misguided’[12]. We are not advocating such historic revisionism. Rather, we want to emphasize that past conceptualisations around political and scientific issues seem to have a much shorter shelf-life than literary or philosophical ones. Arguably, few today would seriously consider citing Plato’s concept of republic as a strict model for government or revert to Aristotle’s theory of the four elements for scientific guidance. Conversely, other ideas are far more resilient, for example: the insights of stoicism (which informs cognitive behaviour therapy)[13] or the Socratic method (which is still a staple of pedagogy)[14], are still with us today.

In the rich tapestry of Western higher education, the many ideas find their origin and subsequent re-emergence. For example, medieval scholars such as John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308), who, in the 13th century, delved into scholastic philosophy, weaving intricate intellectual frameworks, and to pedagogy.[15] Yet the very term ‘dunce’ and its negative connotation came to be used to disregard such old-fashioned views. Amongst others, during the Renaissance period, 16th-century thinkers like Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) emerged, emphasizing a humanistic approach to education that prioritizes the cultivation of well-rounded individuals.[16] The 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) underscored the personal benefits of education, while cautioning against harmful standardization.[17] Moving forward into the 19th century, John Henry Newman (1801–1890) advocated for a British liberal education, that would put even more emphasis on the character shaping of the individual going through higher education.[18] Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) of Germany presented Higher Education as a formative experience for those with “a scientific spirit”.[19] Others focus more on a proto‘impact agenda’. Social reformers like Beatrice Webb (1858–1943) envisioned education as a catalyst for societal change.[20] Karl Marx (1818–1883) critiqued educational systems for perpetuating social norms, focusing especially on the outcomes.[21] In the 20th century, the likes of James B. Conant's (1893–1978) called for accessible American Higher Education, zeroing in on scientific and technical skills for national growth.[22] Likewise, Paulo Freire (1921–1997) urged for breaking down oppressive structures,[23] while Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) explored the link between education, culture, and social inequality.[24] Through the ages, the perspectives varied, yet all portrayed Higher Education as a highly contentious good, one that is immensely personal, political, and socially contingent.

Our titular simile of the ‘Tantalean punishment’ (i.e., referring to those who have good things but are not permitted to enjoy them) should be understood in this much broader conception of Higher Education. Modern evolutionary psychology has come to corroborate many of the ancient wisdoms in an array of extreme situations.[25] Tantalus, the subject of our descriptive simile may be recognisable to the casual reader by being the cellmate of Ixion and Sisyphus, where Odysseus encounters him in his own descent into the underworld. Zeus condemned Tantalus to endure endless hunger and thirst for his crimes. His ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ meant that ripe fruits were suspended right above his head, but when he reached for them; they retreated or withered to dust. Similarly, Tantalus was placed in a pool of water that receded as soon as he bent down to drink, or the water evaporated from his hand. Among Tantalus’s many crimes were his attempts of trying to steal ambrosia, stealing a golden dog crafted by Hephaestus, and spreading gossip from the banquets of the gods (to whom he was a frequent guest). However, his punishment was ordinated for trying to challenge the gods and attempting to trick them by serving his own son as a feast in order to display his own intellectual superiority and their cruelty. In general, the myth serves as a stark warning for humanity not to cross the line between mortals and gods.[26] We are using this myth as a simile to highlight the inherent conflicts that are involved within academic trade-offs.

What are the arising trade-offs involved in the creation of research impact and the contemporary impact agenda (?) represents the knowledge gap of our paper. In this paper, we apply the simile of the Tantalean punishment to a hypothetical early-career researcher. More specifically, we are interested in what the tantalising[27] promises of research evaluation and impact might mean for the individual. The said individual has just finished their PhD in whatever disciplinary specialisation of choice. They may have a family, be in the process of starting one, or have sacrificed such ambitions for a career within academia. Through great efforts, they have secured their “dream job”, which increasingly means project employment or some equivalent time limited research post. As part of such a position, they are expected to teach and do research, whilst balancing home life, friends and juggling their personal mental/physical health. Such ambitions are often the driving force behind why the individual was attracted to academia in the first place, but once arrived there they were confronted by the tedious nature of bureaucratic tasks or grunt work of some senior academics’ research ambitions. These young academics invest many hours not to jeopardise their career prospects, with the promise of the tantalising reward of peer recognition. The tasks set in front of them might come to the detriment of other spheres of their lives (family time, friends, exercise, healthy food, relaxation etc.), which are all sacrificed in the pursuit of these seemingly more important goals.

3. Theory: the disciplining of facts 

The second objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework that elaborates on how such trade-offs influence changes in scientific knowledge production and higher education intergenerationally.[28]  We argue that one always must think about historical, societal and/or institutional changes from an individualistic perspective of multiple choices. This is why we included the hypothetical early-career researcher into this paper as a rhetorical subject for our argument. The disciplinary routines that scholars are conditioned by[29], and even the very language that individuals use,[30] all shape an individual’s sense of self[31] and are pivotal to understand the collective modern tribe[32] we call university. We will now look into the evolutionary dynamic inherent within the cultural activity we collectively call research (3.1), and then pontificate on the conditioning that such dynamic engenders for the knowledge facts are being produced by (3.2).

3.1. Research as an evolved cultural enterprise

The phrase ‘nanos gigantum humeris insidentes’ (‘standing on the shoulders of giants’) is commonly attributed to Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and refers to the supposedly accumulative nature of scientific knowledge. What is sometimes forgotten is that the giants themselves are standing on the shoulders of other giants, and so forth, its subjective interpretation all the way.[33] Such a dynamic gives rise to an evolutionary agglomeration that is usually simplified to a linear development,[34] and creates the perception of objectivity and indisputability of facts.[35] The giants are not merely vantage points; they also represent powerful allies, mobilised by the individual researcher when creating theory, writing and defending their work from criticism. Thereby, such alliances are deliberately weaved into a narrative by the researcher when they are putting their argument(s) forward.[36] The cost involved in the unmaking of a newly-created theory (proposition + alliances) conditions if an ‘opinion’ is accepted as true or false, criticised or praised, or labelled as ‘objective fact’ or mere ‘subjective interpretation’.[37] The more alliances that can be mobilised the harder it becomes to invalidate the proposition as mere subjectivity, which functionally turns it into a scientific fact. Once enough allies are garnered the collective accepts – of a still subjective proposition – becomes functionally true.[38] In addition, what is considered scientific is the successful emulation of established disciplinary procedures such as outlining a knowledge gap, applying accepted methods, and publishing the research results in academic journals. Collectively, the result of this knowledge creation process represents an evolutionary growth of the knowledge base within particular research discipline, at least in principle.

In the Anglophone world, the idea of science carries the connotation of only referring to the natural sciences, a specificity not present e.g. in German, or Swedish, where science translates to ‘knowledge craft'.[39] In order to minimise confusion, we employ the word research in this paper to describe the impact of knowledge.[40] Furthermore, invocations to research impact make implicit reference to an underlying understanding of what research is and how it functions. What impact research can and cannot produce depends on the underlying understanding of how the research functions.[41] As aforementioned, the perception of objectivity stems precisely through the rhetoric of some idealised version of scientific knowledge accumulation (e.g. positivism, falsification, empiricism etc.). Alternatively, the inverse case is made for that ‘everything is socially constructed’, whilst gleefully pointing out the influence of individual power struggles between academics, the need for resources or other inherent biases.[42] Viewed from an evolutionary perspective outlined above such a stark dichotomy disappears.[43] Furthermore, if research impact is the goal – evolutionary speaking – we then also get the ability to differentiate why certain social constructions are better or worse, enabling evaluation.

3.2. Research evaluation as a conditioning mechanism

The evaluation of research and higher education has now incorporated research impact as a goal of research[44]. The UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) rewards “good” research behaviour materially, in that the UK government allocates research funds tied directly to the received scores.[45] Furthermore, evaluative judgments of the REF are irrevocable, in that the REF 2014 makes unequivocally clear that “[information …] not already been made public shall be destroyed.”[46] The incorporation of research impact into such an evaluation structure further consolidates an already powerful social conditioning mechanism. The REF’s judgment becomes a de facto arbiter of what are “good” (and by default “bad”) research practices, ranking HEIs and shaping scientific knowledge production accordingly. In the UK, such judgments influence the allocation of over one billion British pounds annually[47] and consolidate a hierarchy of have and have-nots.

The importance of (disciplinary) hierarchies – created by REF and consolidated by the funding – are so biologically important to us primates that hierarchical positions can be directly tied to our physical/mental health, motivations and social behaviour.[48] All the different sub-branches of research represent highly structured and choreographed human endeavours were what constitutes expertise is socially negotiated.[49] Thereby, research pushes the boundaries of socially consolidated knowledge into areas where consensus is not yet established. If this is “good” or “bad” can only be determined afterwards. Each disciplinary specialisation has its own way to deal with how this is evaluated; what does not change, is the temporal dimension. Hence, HEIs compete for favourable judgments within institutional rankings[50] as they represent a material bottleneck that consolidates resource allocation.

We will now revisit our hypothetical early-career researcher to exemplify influence of disciplinary hierarchies upon the individual. Firstly, the individual already has been conditioned by passing grades in a school environment and/or doctoral training.[51] The conditioning continues once employed within a university, albeit the manifestations may not be as obvious and overt. Yet, the behaviours driven by government standards, teaching evaluations, funding applications, peer review, conference participation, PhD supervision protocols, university strategies etc. all function as incentives and disincentives for the individual to navigate through; in other words, they discipline. The created interaction ritual chains[52] do not only enculture the individual into the practical task of the research craft (i.e. expertise), they also – if done well and rewarded – reinforce the individual sense of identity be it as a researcher, scholar, reader, lecturer, academic or whatever identity provided for within a ‘career’s framework’. The specific disciplinary mechanism studied in this paper is that of research impact within the UK nationalised research assessment. However, before we discuss our empirical findings, we will elaborate on the methodology and method used in this research.  

4. Methodology and method

This section is divided into two parts. The first part addresses the chosen research methodology of discourse analysis (4.1.), while the second part articulates the practical choices in relation to in/exclusion of the data material, as well as our rhetorical and ethical choices in the construction of our argument (4.2.).

4.1. Utilising critical discourse analysis as a methodological approach

This study understands discourse in a Foucauldian sense, that is, as systems of human thought, which are disciplining, restricting and enabling.[53] Thereby, discourses are “products of history [… that are] historically and socially defined.”[54] They make certain things ‘thinkable’ and place novel information within interpretive frameworks. For example, they regulate who has the authority and the ability to express certain thoughts (the epistemic privilege). Discourse analysis core assumption is that construction and reality are synonyms as we engage with the world through our language.  Furthermore, we expand the idea of disciplining to more than just the power and language dimension by including social, material, cognitive and emotional factors, which may or may not be obvious to anyone in already disciplined by them.

Discourse analysis is distinct from other qualitative methodologies that presuppose that reality exists independently from language.[55] Surely, other qualitative methodological approaches could also have been fruitful to study the interface between research, research evaluation and enculturing societal values. For example, we could have used actor-network theory,[56] anthropological inquires[57] or sociological approaches[58] to only mention a few. However, such approaches presuppose open-ended forms of inquiry, deemphasizing methodological guidelines and emphasising immersion in the praxis of construction.[59] Such an open-ended approach is certainly suitable when following a specific project from start to finish. However, obtaining praxis immersion is less feasible with finished projects. Equally, immersion is unfeasible when touching upon society-wide discourses,[60] of which any project is but a manifestation regardless of its sample size. Discourse analysis represents a methodological compromise, as it provides open-ended guidelines for a structured inquiry that does not suffocate the research. In our case, the choice of discourse analysis allowed us to study research evaluation after their construction finished, allowing us to make inferences to the process of evaluation and why something was valued/not valued.[61]

4.2. Identifying the research subject

Tourism studies provided the data subject for this research, and arguably this field renders itself as a suitable study subject for investigating issues around normalisation. Firstly, the status of ‘tourism studies’ as a discipline is contested by the tourism scholars themselves (some say it represents a discipline and others state it is only unified by its research subject).[62] Secondly, tourism studies has been incorporated into the REF 2014 Unit of Assessment (UoA) 26 (Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism).[63] Thereby, in spite of the on-going internal debates, it has all the hallmarks of a disciplinary enterprise as it is subject to research evaluation. Therefore, we selected our data material not based on the REF delimitations, but rather whether the submitting HEIs self-identified as tourism departments. Consequently, we analysed eight different HEIs’ impact templates[64] (within the aforementioned UoA 26, but also from the UoA 19, Business and Management studies). Table 4.1. represents the identified HEIs of tourism studies. Similarly, we also extended our analysis with studying the submitted tourism impact cases studies (n = 23), interviews with tourism scholars (n = 13) and other more general observations about the field of tourism studies, as well as the influence of the impact agenda that we have already published elsewhere.[65]

Table 4.1. Tourism studies HEIs that have submitted impact templates to the REF 2014

Code                                      Tourism HEI                                             REF Unit of Assessment

1-UoN-19                                University of Nottingham                         19

2-UoK-19                                University of Kent                                    19

3-UoC-19                                University of Cardiff                                19

4-BU-26                                 Bournemouth University                         26

5-UoSun-26                           University of Sunderland                        26

6-UoSur-26                            University of Surrey                                26

7-UoBed-26                           University of Bedfordshire                     26

8-UoBri-26                             University of Brighton                            26

For our analysis, we departed from the understanding that assessment of research impact presupposes an initial condition where no impact yet has manifested. We subdivided this process as follows: [1] causality of the inferred change of the impact claims, [2] references to underpinning research that facilitated the change, [3] intended beneficiary influenced by the change, [4] type of evidences employed to corroborate the change, and [5] ambitions for future changes. We arrived at these categories by understanding research impact as an activity that stretches over time. Table 4.2 represents our five analytical foci and displays the correspondence to the content of the HEIs’ impact templates.

Table 4.2. Practical reading guide for the critical discourse analysis of the impact templates

Analytical category Sought-for discourse

[I] type of impact [1] impact praxis discourse

(REF’s own definition of impact used to identify research impact in the case studies) What types of impacts are mentioned within the documents?

[II] type of research [2] research praxis discourse

(Universities’ own definition of what type of research they identify) What different types of research are behind the claimed impact?

[III] type of tourism [3] user discourses

(Different broad definitions of tourism are derived from the tourism studies literature, What type of tourism is mentioned as end-user of the research impact?
and these are used to categorise the types of tourism)

[IV] type of evidence [4] science discourse

(REF’s own regulations for evidencing are used to analyse how the claims What type of evidence is used to reference the research AND the impact
where referenced) (similarities/differences)?

[IV] type of future [5] research impact discourse

(Future milestones and ambitions mentioned in relation to a commitment to What type of future implementation is mentioned to maximise research impact?
research impact)

Source: authors

As for our working method, we printed a corpus five times, and each exemplar corresponded to one analytical foci. We read these consecutively, one analytical focus at a time. We then highlighted each of the relevant sections on the page, articulating and deliberating to what specific subcategory they corresponded. These subcategories represented the ‘proto-themes’ for the summarisation of the material. Next, we created a table for each of the different proto themes with examples of the most indicative quotes. We followed this step by removing the quotes and streamlining the table into coherent themes. The last step of the analysis represented the strategic selection of the most indicative quotes, to be representative of our categories we used to structure our empirical presentation in the next section.

Before we proceed to the empirical section, we need to mention our own ethical choices within the used methodology & method but also within rhetorical construction of our argument. Firstly, we want to justify why we included mythological allusions into a scholarly argument. The answer is“[i]t is not that one researcher is right and the other wrong; rather they are interpreting the data differently.”[66]

Similarly, within discourse analysis the researchers interpolate their own preconception into the studied material. Concerning issues of normalisation, this is unavoidable and we deemed it ethically as we outlined our own theoretical position on how research functions in the previous section. Furthermore, we also acknowledge that our own choices discipline our argument construction and influence how the here presented data material is structured into a coherent narrative. We call our approach ‘mythomatics’, which we define as freely mixing mythology and studies of contemporary praxis to reflexively flag our own subjectivity. Our above-mentioned methodological choices represent the front-end (self-)disciplining that occurs within any construction of research. Meanwhile, research impact evaluation relates to a disciplining that is enforced by the (UK) government and will discipline “good” impact, and what is counted as that is not self-evident. The ethics of research impact are difficult topic to broach, especially in relation to: career development, conflicts of interests and/or the ensuing societal knock-on effects. Even if there is agreement, mutual benefit is identified, and everyone has normalised their own conduct a disciplining still has occurred. The elaboration of the findings below will now address one source of this disciplining

5. Results and analysis: the disciplining of research impact  

The third objective was to utilise the tourism studies faculties’ impact templates in order to analyse normalisation. Here, we found four major themes. Every HEI put a strong emphasis on maximising research impact (5.1). This was to be achieved by a greater push for applied research (5.2) and emphasising the recording and marketing of research and its impact (5.3). Lastly, HEIs emphasized the need of impact officers, who were meant to increase industry research collaboration and guide researchers on their mission to create more research impact (5.4).

5.1. Having a research impact strategy

All tourism HEIs claimed that research impact ought to be increased. All faculties embraced research impact, investing funds to facilitate more research impact. For example, one HEI would provide “a one year research assistant position and £10,000 in funding from other school sources to support [research impact]” (2-UoK-19). Another HEI stated that “all research active staff [would have] a £3K Individual Research Budget which may be used to support impact generating activities” (3-UoC-19). Yet another asserted that a “£145k investment in [research infrastructure & a] tourism applied research centre” (8-UoBri-26) has been made in order to maximise research impact. The tourism studies faculties allegedly committed themselves with large monetary investments to facilitate more research impact, either explicitly or implicitly.

Generally, there was no significant difference between submissions to UoA 19 or the designated UoA 26 (for tourism studies). We interpret this uniformity as a successful incorporation of the impact agenda at the level of institutional planning, i.e. normalisation. For the REF 2021 the impact templates have been dropped, and are now expected to become a “natural” part of the research environment assessment, de facto granting research impact an even bigger weighting than its allocated 25% (already an increase from 20% compared to the REF 2014). As such, in combination to the traditional research norms of conduct, the newly established discursive commandment of ‘good’ research discipline now seems to be thou shall have research impact, and no cost seemed too great to facilitate it.

5.2. Emphasising applied research 

HEIs differed slightly in how the research impact agenda was to be facilitated. For example, some stressed the need to create “industry-facing studentships [that would] underpin each of [their] research clusters by providing support for researchers pursuing industry funded projects” (4-BU-26). Other stressed greater commitment to marketing their research findings. One reason for this could be to “[disseminate] the impacts of research on expertise and skill acquisition within the UK and Europe” (8-UoBri-26). Another could be to deepen the already existing contacts “[t]o maximise the extent and reach of impact“(6-UoSur-26). Noteworthy, nobody mentioned disincentives for failing to engage with the impact agenda, while incentives such as an “annual Impact Awards, with financial rewards attached, for the best examples of research impact” (1-UoN-19) were plentiful. Arguably, here the disciplining pressure of the nature of assessment – and wanting a positive rewarded – is revealed.   

Furthermore, some tourism HEIs must have done a cost-benefit analysis and decided that they would be judged more favourably within a Business and Management Studies (UoA 19) context rather than a composite context that included a ‘leisure’ and ‘sport’ (UoA 26) framing. This could also explain the absence of other tourism HEIs, which would be expected to have submitted impact but did not. In that, universities shuffled their tourism scholars in with other departments/disciplines in an effort to maximise their scores. We refrain here from speculating about the consequences of such conduct for the scholarly community. Regardless of the specific reasons, tourism HEIs pledged that their applied research centres and business collaborations ought to increase in order to facilitate more research impact, further disciplining their behaviour by emphasising collaboration, incentives and monitoring systems. We argue this self-discipline is part of what materially reinforces the impact agenda.    

5.3. Research impact repositories

The monitoring aspects comprised an overarching theme found in all submitting tourism HEIs. Tourism HEIs described explicitly their monitoring practices as: [w]e will maintain records of our impact activity to retain examples of best practice and create an institutional memory of our previous achievements” (2-UoK-19). There were finer differences in how such monitoring was supposed to be implemented, yet their disciplinary role remained the same. For example, other Tourism HEIs stated that their “strategy will require more systematic recording and evaluation of research studies” (4-BU-26). Others’ variants took the form of acknowledging a need to “[t]o systematically monitor and review our impact strategy and outcomes” (6-UoSur-26). In general, the monitoring and internal assessment (i.e. disciplining) of research (impact) was presented as an essential part for achieving more research impact.

Such teleological framing self-disciplines universities in how, what and when research impact ambitions are translated into key performance indicators for academic career progression. These indicators are themselves modelled after the REF framing. Such a discursive framing is not neutral, as it disciplines and enforces the impact agenda by influencing the choice architecture[67] of what the researchers are (dis)allowed to do. Such a development is akin to evaluation of research outputs, with the subsequently created ‘publish or perish’ culture.[68] Thereby, the monitoring aspect becomes a “useful” tool (for management, maybe not dialectically) for the HEIs to account for their research impact. Such discursive/disciplinary framing will presumably be part of an evolutionary selection mechanism that establishes a new academic cultural phenomenon of “impact or starve”. The goal then becomes to score high in the assessment, rather than its actual value. 

5.4. Research impact officers

Every discipline needs enforcers to survive, and impact officers appear to fulfil that role within the university infrastructure. Tourism HEIs focused on the positive dimension of such disciplining when describing their activities, for example:

“In addition, the appointment of the School’s first Research Impact Officer, based in the Research Office, assisted in connecting academic research with various potential beneficiaries. The role has involved two key components: a) creating knowledge about how impact can be effectively achieved throughout the multiple and complex stages of research, and b) building sustainable processes to embed impact-related activity within the School.” (3-UoC-19, authors’ emphasis)

Three HEIs mentioned a ‘research impact officer’ explicitly. The majority did not mention it explicitly but implied a job role of ‘development officer’ (4-BU-26), ‘school impact officer’ (1-UoN-19) or ‘university impact officer’ (8-UoBri-26) with the same responsibilities. Such disciplinary function was universal to all analysed HEIs, although the job title differed. The disciplinary function of these officers was still empathised even when the officer was not mentioned explicitly. At the time of writing this paper, all HEIs employ a Research Impact Officer (6-UoSur-26),[69] a Business Partnership Managers (7-UoBed-26)[70] or a Research Development Officer (5-UoSun-26)[71] who all have significant research impact elements in their job description.

As a final remark, we can still see that a disciplining towards research impact is occurring.[72] This happens regardless the real driving factors behind the described commitments to research impact, such as self-interest of the HEIs, REF guidelines, combination of them, etc. Presumably, the consolidation of the discursive regime around impact represents part of the reason why the ‘pathways to impact’ section is now expected to be incorporated into research funding applications.[73] Therefore, impact thinking is surely aspirational, but it is also disciplining, however, this type of disciplining has not the advancement of knowledge at its immediate goal.

6. DISSCUSION

The discussion will focus on what the above-described disciplinary changes towards a research impact regime imply for a research community. Before we do that, we need to reflect deeper about the limitations of our study on a philosophical level (6.1). Thereafter, we will revisit our hypothetical early-career researcher and our mythological simile, to highlight how fundamental our here described disciplinary mechanism is for any individual researcher (6.2), as well as comment upon the resulting collective dynamic (6.3).  

6.1. Limitations of our argument and research approach

Disciplining needs material reinforcement to accomplish anything. In other words, there has to be a change in behavioural patterns. Any created discourse represents a choreographed coming together of individual values, material possibilities, psychological predispositions, emotional responses, cultural contingents, and group dynamics (etc.). In their totality, nobody – not even ourselves – can escape the subjective limitations that are put on any arguments that are being put forth (even within the context of science/research). Thereby, we acknowledge that there are limitations in our argument of only studying the ‘discipline’ of tourism studies and extrapolating our findings to research knowledge production in general. Nevertheless, we argue precisely because tourism research represents such a small cohort and relatively new ‘discipline’ issues of normalisation are easier to identify. Arguably, the subjectivity inherent within the evaluation of what makes good research impact are not contingent upon the evaluative structure that is being used. Yet, our findings reveal precisely the formation of a disciplining that caters to the evaluation parameters.  We hope that future research could investigate the discursive regimes of the assessment, regimentation and funding around research impact within other disciplines as well, in order to philosophically corroborate or nuance our inferences we are making here.

6.2. Research impact and the new disciplining of the individual researcher                        
It is very easy to take the moral high ground and deem the introduced disciplinary regimes as being detrimental to research, as what is being prioritised is the outcome and not the process.[74] We do not want to make this argument here, because when viewed from an individualistic perspective,[75] the personal incentives, disciplinary obligations of the system and public interests all intertwine and blur the line between what is acceptable and what is not. For example, some scholars will decide that sacrificing family life in order to succeed in their career/generate research impact is worth it, and they hopefully will be rewarded for it. However, if these individuals are the moral paragons of society, what role model[76] does this create for the average person if such sacrifice is rewarded/normalised? Conversely, are we now at a place where our competitive academic environment is so extreme that academics cannot have a family? In either case, the created behavioural routine and disciplining of the assessment of research impact – in its current form – are consolidating an ever more stringent competition in the pursuits of tantalising impact.

Tantalus’s crime was to ‘sacrifice his own son’, and it is with this allusion to trade-offs (and their perverse consequences) we intend to frame the rest of our discussion in order to bring to the surface what otherwise is normalised. Psychological research has shown in the case of difficult ethical choices human beings easily defer responsibility to an authority figure.[77] An authoritative body like the REF requiring impact might “improve” the overall performance of generating impact. But at what cost? What are the costs for loss of trust in ideas that the system is producing for monetary gain? Scholars pushing for more and more outcomes/impacts (like. publish-or-perish or impact-or-starve) are in fact enacting a tacit consent of the status quo and normalise an evaluation scheme, which outcomes they themselves may not even agree with. Outwardly, it is possible to construe the resulting normalised behavioural pattern as hypocritical even when the individuals themselves do not see their own conduct as such. On an individual level, we can disagree if we like/dislike the disciplining of the impact agenda, we can agree/disagree if we think this disciplining is going into the right direction, we can agree/disagree about the degree that it is needed; yes, these are all indeed serious discussions to be held. However, we cannot disagree on the very value of discipline if the notion of research community is meant to be meaningful. It is possible to utilise postmodern dialectics,[78] create research impact and argue why it is justifiable but, in the process, the very notion of rigour, innovation and progress is lost as the end justifies the means.

If we leave the hypothetical early-career researcher aside and look at actual early-career researchers that were submitted to the REF 2021 (which gives a picture that is seven years downstream from changes proposed in 2014), we can see what their influence is. In terms of the REF returns, we find that the picture is mixed to negative as to raw numbers. For example, within Main Panel A (health sciences) there was a drop in early-career researchers, were “REF 2021 represented 16% of the staff headcount submitted, whereas the figure for REF 2014 had been 19%”.[79] In Main Panel B (natural and earth sciences) we find stable numbers of ERCs as they contend that there was good support for early career researchers, yet raising that are “opportunities for some units to do more to recruit, nurture and develop ECRs”.[80] In the Main Panel C (social sciences), of which tourism studies is part of, we read that ECRs “ma[de] up about 16 per cent of staff submitted […] compared with REF 2014 when ECRs were about 19 per cent of submitted staff.”[81] Meanwhile, in Main Panel D (humanities) we learn that “[c]hanges to how information about ECR status was collected mean that no conclusions can be drawn from the reduction in the number of ECRs recorded as submitted in REF 2021 as compared to REF 2014.”[82]; this regards the reduction of ERC from 22 per cent to 13 per cent between the exercises. All of this can be taken as strong indications that the changes in the incentive structures get re-interpreted and re-moulded into systems of performance measures, governmentality and precarity, a condition commonly referred to as neoliberalism. This is what early-career researchers are the first to feel the brunt.[83]  

6.3. Research impact and the disciplining of the research collective        

The union of researchers (employees), universities (institutions) and the REF 2014 assessment system (disciplinary bodies) together create an impact discourse that is both enabling and restrictive. The UK government is invested in the assessment, as they have spent enormous amounts of taxpayer funds on both the funding and evaluation of research. The REF is merely one of the disciplinary mechanisms discursively shaping higher education and research. Other worth mentioning are the Teaching Excellence Framework[84], the Knowledge Exchange Framework[85] or the university league tables that are all disciplining their own agendas in the UK. In that vein of our ‘mythomatics’, it might be too speculative to suggest that UK universities, in their REF game, pursue the most favourable scores in terms of impact. Rather, they mayhap wilfully sacrifice the cohort with no prior impact, namely the early-career researchers. However, more research is certainly welcome in this regard, and we do not want to spread unsubstantiated claims, how plausible they may seem.  Likewise, based on our dataset, we cannot draw any far-reaching conclusions about specific individuals’ life choices. There are no homogenous early-career researchers.. We invite future research to engage with our ‘mythomathical’ implication and verify its broader veracity. 

Our results showed finer differences in how the research impact was presented across the (tourism) HEIs. In general, though, impact was presented using flowery and positive rhetoric of creating more research impact whilst being very sparse on the potential ethical conflicts that arise for research and academic authority. Yes, it is “good” that more research impact is being facilitated: but towards what are these examples of “best practice” geared? Are they meant to improve the universities’ ability to procure more research funding? Are they meant to generate beneficial research impact, and for whom? Are they meant to drive knowledge forward, and what are the ethical implications for the value of new knowledge? Moreover, how does all of this fit together? These are not are trivial matters, in that the very nature of the assessment regime creates a selection pressure of “positive” examples in an attempt to be judged favourably. Such “positive” examples conceal the more unsavoury dimensions of the research impact agenda we are implicating here, yet the used rhetoric and assessment regime normalises them.

For tourism research in specific, this normalisation means that it is becoming ever more ‘disciplined’ in the technical sense. For research in general, it means that research impact is something that no academic can ignore, at least not in the UK. Furthermore, the “success”-oriented behavioural patterns are likely to be taught to the next generations. In answering our research question, the source of disciplining around research impact seems emanate from overlapping domains of interest (REF, universities, academics, impact officers etc.). These, in turn, mutually reinforce each other by their specific vested interests, and create a symbiotic discursive pressure that normalise research conduct, and making it difficult to criticise. At this point of our paper, when inferring specific problems around the normalisation of the discursive research impact regime at UK universities’ we could start gossiping about what happened at the banquet of the gods. However, we do not want to anger our own “gods”, our university employers, and therefore choose to refrain from it. Someone could construe such an approach as cowardly, and indeed, Tantalus himself was “brave” to challenge the gods. However, given the enormous complexity involved in valuing any research impact as good (and inversely bad) we refrain from it.  This is not our aim either. Rather, we want to maintain that even when everything is done by the book (and we have identified patterns of “best practice”), disciplining still must occur. Furthermore, the resulting normalisation can still transgress individual academic integrity. Yet, nobody but the self-censoring individual may notice, or they might not even notice themselves. What we see is being lost, is criticality towards the impact agenda. It is being lost, because it is difficult to criticise an entire system when also thinking about your own career-progression and university funding that are involved within the normalised impact agenda.

7. CONCLUSION

Assuming that research “[i]mpact is not going to go away”,[86] we argue that we not only have to find workable ways of how to include it but also a new language of how we can address its emergent problems. If we don’t, the only difference between research and politics will be that research will have an assessment window of seven years instead of four. Like in the Greek myth of Tantalus, if you choose to participate in the metrics game for the sake of scoring high, the enjoyment and pleasure will fade away as soon as the action is no longer rewarded. Contrarily, if the research programme is geared towards the establishment of new knowledge (instead of impact) hopefully any evaluation just becomes that. Like other discussions in this journal, we could lament on ‘why we can’t have nice things’ in a Tantalean resignation to the imposed punishment and declare academia in its entirety as “irrational”.[87]  There is certainly a lot to be said on how such evaluation structures adversely affect the avenues of scholarly pursuit.[88] This is especially true when it comes to the role of early-career researchers, who – by the token of their career stage – have not yet amassed a lot of impact, and may succumb to being sacrificed at the altar of ‘the greater good’.[89] Equally, there is also an axiological dimension, in that authority – scientific authority included – should be scrutinised. Our use of the idea of mythomatics hopefully provides a language repertoire that allows us to analyse what we mean when we say that university conduct should be geared towards ‘the common good’[90] and personally see the working patterns of the university contradicting it. Furthermore, we do not want to disparage the brave and dutiful individuals that do the best they can. Rather, we want to lift the gaze and focus on the systemic nature. Any discipline facilitating success is technically value-neutral in that the outcome usually decides the value. Nevertheless, the very discursive regime around impact can undermine the value of academic rigour, as individuals justify their more important ends over such means. Only the gods of the past can allow to be so self-righteous and dismissive of unintended consequences in the pursuit of impact.

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