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In a surprise — though widely welcomed — move, Britain's higher education funding councils have removed the biochemistry panel from the list of groups that will carry out its forthcoming Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

The RAE is an initiative taken every few years to assess the quality of UK research, and is used by the funding councils to provide additional funds for more productive research departments. The next RAE will begin in 2001.

In the past, biochemistry has been assessed separately from the rest of the biological sciences, although this has been seen as illogical by many in both communities. For many years, senior figures had been unsuccessfully pressing for a merger of the panels. Biochemistry departments had been able to take part in the exercise under either panel, giving rise to doubts whether they were being judged on a comparable basis.

Another anomaly was forecast by the Biochemical Society when it began a campaign to have the two panels merged before the last exercise in 1996. It warned that keeping a separate biochemistry panel would lead to only a small number of the best departments choosing to be assessed separately from the rest of the biological sciences.

In line with this warning, in the 1996 exercise, only 17 departments went through the RAE under the biochemistry panel and a notably high proportion of these went on to be rated as 5 or 5*, the top categories in a seven-category rating scale.

According to some researchers, many of these departments appear to have engaged in strategic ‘game playing’. By putting a small, high-level biochemistry department through the RAE separately from the rest of a large biological sciences department, it is easier to win top ratings — bringing the hope of receiving extra money.

As recently as last November, after sending a “very focused letter” on the subject, the Biochemical Society thought it had failed to convince the funding councils. The letter urged the councils to remove the panel.

The society has welcomed the change. Details emerged when the Higher Education Funding Council for England released a list of the chairs of unit of assessment panels two days before Christmas. Notably absent was any mention of a biochemistry panel.

“We conducted a fairly extensive consultation last year,” says John Rogers, manager of the RAE. “The decision was taken in November to discontinue the biochemistry panel. We are responding to views received to improve the exercise.”