University of Warwick Press: Journals
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Identifying Metrics for Measuring Research Culture at the University of Leeds
No full textEvaluating research quality, environment, and impact has become standard in Higher Education (HE) and is largely based on quantitative data and expert assessments. Data-driven evaluations that focus on high-level statistics or conventional outputs can compromise the recognition of a wider range of research outputs and outcomes by a more diverse range of contributors. Hence, the mechanisms for evaluating research must be applicable and inclusive of a wide range of research activities. In contrast, research culture covers a vast breadth of areas, from career development, career pathways, reward, and recognition, to research integrity and equality. Most of these areas are not easily measurable, with capacity and capability limitations compounding the challenge. Clearly, there is a wealth of measurement options, which many research institutions are currently grappling with to best suit their local context. However, there are concerns as to whether it is appropriate or even possible to measure research cultural change. Concentrating too heavily on metrics rather than the changes themselves may pose additional barriers to the cultural change we desire. Thus, we argue that the adopted measures must be nuanced for context and for success relative to where we started and what we collectively understand as being measured.
Here we discuss the University of Leeds’ process of selecting metrics to measure research culture change over the next five years. We share how we engaged with the SCOPE framework to identify, shortlist, and probe potential metrics across the four strategic objectives we have identified are best placed to enhance our research culture. From an initial list of more than 80 metrics we have been able to narrow down to just five robust metrics that we feel, with regular monitoring, will maintain adaptability, resilience, and rigour.
This paper aims to provide open and transparent insight into how we have chosen to measure our change in research culture, in order to: benefit the wider sector; foster the sharing of best practices and avoid duplication of efforts. Thus, capturing the true essence of what we at the University of Leeds think it means to change culture
Hugh Clegg (1920-95), the new ‘Warwick School’ of Industrial Relations and the Creation of the Modern Records Centre
No full textThe Warwick Industrial Relations (IR) academics, George Bain and Hugh Clegg, were key movers in founding the Modern Records Centre (MRC) & attracting the unique collection of trade union and employers\u27 records. In the late 1960s, after his crucial role on the 1965-68 \u27Donovan\u27 Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers\u27 Associations, Clegg was recruited from Nuffield College, Oxford to become a founding professor in what became Warwick Business School. He won SSRC funding to bring the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) to Warwick, which became the national centre for the field, with a global reputation, at a time when IR was arguably the central UK domestic issue. Leadership of the IRRU passed to George Bain, then Willy Brown. After retirement, Clegg then used the MRC for the final two volumes of his landmark A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 (Oxford University Press 1985, 1994). Based on interviews with the archivist, Richard Storey, George Bain and other members of the \u27Warwick School\u27, my paper will discuss: (1) the formation of Warwick School IR; (2) Bain & Clegg\u27s influence on the MRC; and (3) Clegg\u27s writing on trade union history. In 2003, I co-edited a study of academic IR Understanding Work & Employment (OUP) & for the past 20 years I\u27ve published widely on Hugh Clegg. My full biography with Routledge is now out
Collaboration in the Archive: The MRC and the Railway Work, Life & Death Project
No full textIn this piece we look at a collaborative project, in which the Modern Records Centre is a co-lead: the Railway Work, Life & Death project. The project is transcribing details of accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939. Using a collaborative and co-productive methodology, and thanks to the efforts of volunteers, we are transcribing and making freely available tens of thousands of records of accidents to railway workers. Many of these records come from the collections of what is now the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) trade union, and their support for our work has been excellent. Here we offer up critical reflections from across the project team about how the project has worked in practice
Max Horkheimer on Law\u27s Force of Resistance
No full textThe law maintains, rather than challenges, the powers that be – or so it is commonly thought. In ‘Rackets and Spirit,’ a little known and untranslated essay, Max Horkheimer complicates this notion by attributing to law a ‘force of resistance’. He contends that, under certain conditions, the legal process develops a logic of its own, one that can become disjointed from the rationale of power. In this Critical Reflection, I look closely at the paragraph in which Horkheimer introduces the notion of a ‘force of resistance’. I argue that Horkheimer develops a theme that he and Theodor W. Adorno return to in the Dialectic of Enlightenment: the spiritual instruments of domination, among them law, have the potential to turn against domination. At the same time, Horkheimer is clear that law does not resist automatically: it takes human agents to put the legal sphere into opposition to the political sphere. I illustrate this thought with respect to the recent history of federal abortion rights in the United States
The International Obligation to Counter Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan
Get PDFThe following article was first published in the Columbia Law Journal and is reproduced with permission and an updated introduction.
Since they returned to power in August 2021, the Taliban are again imposing a regime of gender apartheid in Afghanistan in violation of international law, just as they did in the 1990s. Given that it is pervasively discriminatory, gender apartheid poses specific human rights problems requiring particular, heightened responses. A system of governance based on subordination of women institutionalizes sex discrimination across state political, legal, and cultural infrastructures. It necessitates different counter-strategies.
This article suggests conceptual architecture for analyzing and responding to this aspect of the current Afghan crisis. Specifically, the robust international legal framework that helped end racial apartheid should be urgently adapted to address gender apartheid and concert the responses of other states to it.
There are three principal arguments in favor of this approach. 1) It is essential for fulfilling states’ international legal commitments on sex discrimination across every document in the International Bill of Human Rights, as well as the specific target they affirmed in the Sustainable Development Goals to achieve gender equality by 2030. 2) Any other stance leads to an unacceptable imbalance in the manner in which international law addresses discrimination on the bases of sex and race. 3) This may be the only way to effectively tackle systematic Taliban abuses, as the organization is deeply committed to its violations of women’s rights and already sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. Such an approach marshals the resources of the international community to constrain the Taliban, and is the best hope for ensuring the credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness of the international legal response
Memoir: A Saga of Love under the Hail of Fire
No full textThis short story is excerpted from a memoir entitled Raha Dar Bad (Los Angeles: Ketab Corp., 2012), written by Soraya Baha. Ms. Baha was the sister-in-law of Mohammad Najibullah (1947–1996) who served as president of Afghanistan from 1986–1992. Najibullah became head of the secret police when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in the December 1979. He was infamous for his brutality and ruthlessness. He became president of the country when the Soviet forces withdrew in 1989, and his widely despised government was considered a puppet regime of the Soviets. Ms. Baha was against the Soviet occupation, as well as the dictatorship of Najibullah. She ran away with her husband and their two children, Khaled, and Roya, and joined the war front in northern Afghanistan (Panjshir), where the famous partisan commander Ahmad-Shah Masoud had stationed his mujahedin forces. Masoud was fighting the Russians and led the largest war front in the mountains and valleys of Panjshir. Soraya Baha stayed there for some time in a small cabin with her two children. She later wrote her memoir and included this experience. The excerpted story below is based on true events that the author personally witnessed while in Panjshir
Films about Afghan Women
Get PDFFilm Reviews of Sonita (2015; Dir: Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami); A Thousand Girls Like Me (2018; Dir: Sahra Mousawi-Mani); Hava, Maryam, Ayesha (2020; Dir: Sahraa Karimi
Towards a European Framework for Fiscal Standards: Data Collection, Description and Institutional Analysis
No full textThe fiscal rules of the Stability and Growth Pact have consistently failed to enforce good fiscal governance and contain rising debt ratios across euro area economies. This article illustrates the unsustainable nature of Greek fiscal policy prior to the global financial crisis and argues for the adoption of fiscal standards to improve fiscal policy. This will require a common and transparent framework for debt sustainability analysis. An evaluation of the euro area’s newest member along the lines of sustainable fiscal governance shows that Croatia is in a stronger fiscal position than Greece was after adopting the euro. Moreover, the resilience and crisis management methods of the Eurozone as a whole have improved significantly. To safeguard against future crises and prepare euro area economies for the fiscal strain of ageing populations and climate change, however, the Eurozone needs to transition from fiscal rules to fiscal standards
The Castle and the Seasons: Loris Jacopo Bononi and the Geometaphor of Castiglione del Terziere
No full textThis article develops the concept of the “geometaphor” by considering the life and work of Loris Jacopo Bononi, poet-doctor-collector-inventor, through two elements of his landscapes: the castle of Castiglione del Terziere with its contents (a desire of eternity) and the fleeting seasons in the surrounding woods (the astonishment of the ephemeral). Two are the main lenses: Bononi’s relationship with his castle in Lunigiana and with specific objects preserved there (the contents of his bedroom and library, especially the incunabula collection); and his poetic production spanning the last years of his life, in the first decade of the XXI century. This is the first article that deals with Bononi’s poetic production in English.