RAE 2008 Esteem Indicators

As part of RAE 2008 preparations, we will be asking each potential Cat A member of staff to provide a list of esteem indicators. These are marks of respect from the research community that indicate an individual's research reputation. These will be entered into the School Database. Eventually, they may form part of our RAE 2008 submission.

The purpose of this document is to assist staff members, and their appraisers, to select appropriate personal esteem indicators. The esteem indicator slot in the School Database will consist of up to six free-text fields: one per esteem indicator. You should provide up to six indicators. Email these to Tamise Totterdell. If you would like to update your indicators, email the revisions to Tamise.

Our RAE panel has decided that (roughly speaking) we will be allowed to list twice as many esteem indicators as there are members of category A staff submitted, with no more than four per person. Each of these will be graded on a five-point scale of unclassified (worst) to 4* (best), then a profile will be calculated based on the number of indicators classified at each grade. Obviously, you should list those indicators that you think will attract the highest grade. We have provided six slots in case you are in doubt as to which are your best four. The final decision as to which indicators to submit to RAE 2008 will be designed to optimise our profile.

What is Eligible as an Esteem Indicators?

The list of indicators below is taken from our sub-panels criteria and working methods. It is not exhaustive.

It is in the nature of esteem indicators that one cannot predict all the various forms they may take. If you are in doubt as to whether something would make a suitable esteem indicator, or if you want advice on which indicators to list, then please contact me. The key property is that your research colleagues should have chosen you to play some prestigious role in recognition of your research prowess. The more prestigious the role then the higher the grade it will attract.

Esteem indicators should have been gained during the assessment period, which is 1.1.01 --- 31.10.07.

Aggregated esteem indicators will be allowed, e.g. "Programme chair of 3 major conferences (IFIP-01, IJCAI-03, LICS-04)". An aggregated indicator may attract a higher grade than each of the indicators separately, so is worth aggregating where we might otherwise have a surfeit of indicators. Most types of indicator can be aggregated.

Presenting your Esteem Indicators

We will have very limited space to record esteem indicators in our RAE 2008 submission. We are also likely to be very limited in the number we are able to submit: both in total and per individual. It will, therefore, help in the presentation of our case, if you could select the best indicators you have and express them as succinctly as possible. However, you must give sufficient information that your claim can be verified. For instance, if you claim to have chaired or given an invited talk at a conference, then provide the acronym and date of that conference.

Your entry might look like one of these, for instance.

  1. President of ACL (2003-date).
  2. Invited speaker at two major conferences (FM-01, LICS-07).
  3. Organiser of three workshops (Dubious Methods 2002, 2004, 2006).
  4. Best paper Mobile Robots 2006.
  5. Member of two programme committees (KR-03, ML-05).

Alan Bundy
Last modified: Mon Aug 27 13:16:05 BST 2007