A word from the Dean

Dear Staff

At last, spring has arrived with temperatures reaching over 20 degrees. Soon, the students will sit their exams, and then it will be summer.

Spring is also in the air on the education politics scene. The Minister has proposed an education taximeter reform, which to a significant extent is a continuation of the current STÅ model. The model also contains a new quality parameter, but apparently the Minister's officers haven't been able to come up with a concrete, politically digestible model for this new parameter.

Could it be because it is difficult to come up with a formula for quality? We can easily count publications and quotes, measure the h-index, calculate the ratio between the number of students and the number of research active teachers, calculate the number of contact hours, measure the students' satisfaction with their teachers etc. But can we agree on the weighting between these parameters? Probably not.

A greatly respected researcher once said that researchers should be judged in the same way as musicians and performers. The audience can recognize good quality when they see it. In the world of research, we call this peer review.

Let us hope that the Minister's officers reach the same conclusion - that if they find a formula to measure quality, then it will be a proxy for quality measurement. But nothing more than that.

Martin Zachariasen, Dean