Matthew Hotopf on panel deciding criteria for assessing research in REF2021

[Esther12]

http://www.ref.ac.uk/media/ref,2021/downloads/Criteria phase panel membership - updated 23.03.18.pdf

REF2021 is an important process for assessing the quality of research from UK universities, and can have a big impact on future funding that they attract.

REF2014 was full of BS spun submissions about how much great research on CFS had been done by White/Sharpe/etc/etc. It seemed like this all sailed through.

Hotopf often co-authors with Wessely, and seemed unable to understand problems with research like PACE: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585442/

I've tried to find ways of drawing attention to problems with the REF2014 process, but have failed. I don't even really know how the REF2014 process assessed submissions on things like PACE. It would be good if REF2021 didn't turn into a celebration of hype and quackery.

 

[Adrian]

I've tried to find ways of drawing attention to problems with the REF2014 process, but have failed. I don't even really know how the REF2014 process assessed submissions on things like PACE. It would be good if REF2021 didn't turn into a celebration of hype and quackery.

Most research seems to involves a lot of hype so that may be hard.

 

[Peter T]

I have no specific knowledge, but this seems to be a very important topic.

Could we as a group ask them for clarification of their views on monitoring such as outcome switching and collecting subjects response before trial registration, and their views on using only subjective outcomes in unblinded trials? Presenting these in the context of high levels of spending in the UK on research on the BPS approaches to ME in contrast to minimal spending on biomedical research. EG the prestigious UK Biobank has had to rely on patient and charitable contributions and (albeit not insignificant) international funding.

It could be that they will ignore (corrected typo) this, but at least it puts them on notice.

 

[Esther12]

I found this REF2014 document: http://medicine.cf.ac.uk/media/file...e_pdf_for_ref_14_uoa4_impact_case_studies.pdf

It doesn't give a breakdown on individual projects, but as results for Oxford (p5) and KCL (p8) indicate that no submission from them scored less than 3/4, we can say that must apply to their CFS submissions. Both of which are full of BS.

 

[MEMarge]

I am just getting error msg when type in above. If I try link directly it just goes to med school info.

 

[chrisb]

Hotopf often co-authors with Wessely, and seemed unable to understand problems with research like PACE:

Given that Hotopf, Wessely and Sharpe in their book Chronic Fatigue and its Syndromes made clear their failure to understand a literary construction which should have been straightforward for an able GCSE student, it is perhaps not surprising that they might struggle with more complex matters.

It might be recalled that they attributed to Rachel Jenkins views about hysteria which she quite clearly did not hold. She was paraphrasing Donald Acheson, who was setting up a strawman for demolition. Such grasp of literary technique might explain more.

 

[Andy]

I am just getting error msg when type in above. If I try link directly it just goes to med school info.

Does it have anything to do with this? http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/forwardt...pact-cases-searchable-database-now-available/

That blog links to this http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/search1.aspx