Analysis of research within unit of assessment 67 (music) of the UK Research Assessment Exercise

This study examines the research output of UK university music departments as shown by submissions to the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Citations to work by staff submitted to unit of assessment 67 (music) were counted using the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). Counts were collated at departmental level and these totals were found to correlate strongly with scores awarded by RAE2001. A weaker correlation was found between RAE scores and individual counts. The correlations were significant at the 0.01% level. These findings confirm other studies that show similar correlations between citation counts and RAE scores. RAE submissions were analysed and trends were found within the author group. However, AHCI was found to be unrepresentative of music research activity in UK universities due to its choice of source journals, and a large proportion of the studied population was under- or un-represented by citations derived from AHCI. It is recommended that citation analysis using the AHCI as a data source should not be used for future RAEs. However, if an alternative data source can be found then citation analysis could play a part in research assessment.