Ethically compromising work during the COVID-19 crisis

In this article, published 30 March, 2020, Jo Phoenix considers ethical questions about the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic. Jo Phoenix is Professor of Criminology at The Open University. This was originally posted in the Harm and Evidence Research Collaborative (HERC) in OU Criminology.

On March 16, 2020, I had a career first as I spent the day paralyzed trying to figure out whether it was morally and ethically right to continue with undertaking REF preparation work – a key aspect of my professional role. I decided it was not, even though I suspected that doing so may disadvantage many of my colleagues. I am responsible – along with another colleague – for The Open University’s Social Work and Social Policy unit of assessment submission to REF2021.

For those who do not know, REF (short for the Research Excellence Framework) is a government led, mandatory audit exercise which, every several years, distributes research funding based upon an assessment of research quality of all disciplines at every HE institution. This type of exercise started in 1986 when Thatcher disbanded the University Grants Committee in order to institute a new ethos and mechanism for research funding allocation: competition with the most money going to the ‘best’ universities and ‘best’ to be determined by a review of research quality (see Salter and Tapper (1994) The State and Higher Education, Routledge for an extended discussion of the relationship between the state and universities from WW2 until the end of Thatcherism).

Three decades later, REF is organised into disciplinary ‘units of assessment’ that assess publications from each academic alongside other measures, like ‘research impact’ (the extent to which research has had a (presumably positive) effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia) and ‘research environment’ i.e. research income, numbers of postgraduate completions and the infrastructure and support given to academics.

My ethical crisis was prompted by an internal Open University deadline for producing the first draft of one key section of the ‘Social Work and Social Policy’ statement. I had set aside the week of the 16^th March to write it, along with my colleague. By 18^th March, however, I decided that I would put no further energy into REF preparation work and informed University research managers that this was the case. What follows is a personal account of the questions and thoughts I’ve been asking myself and having. But with all things personal, this is also a political account.

Academics and new pressures when ‘working from home’

We know that as serious as the COVID-19 pandemic is, so too are the unprecedented measures that are being taken by governments all over the globe, from ‘lockdowns’ which enforce social distancing and social isolation to sweeping new governmental powers including effectively nationalising the economy and suspending the normal practices of democracy and the rule of law. Courts are not sitting and even parliament has been suspended. One of the measures taken by the government in the UK was to require those who could work from home to do so. Universities were among some of the first tell their staff to work from home. Working from home for many academics is not necessarily something new. However, this time, Universities were asking academics to ‘pivot’ to online provision for teaching. ‘Pivoting’ is extremely resource hungry. Not only does it take time and energy and against a backdrop of exceptionally rapid and deeply traumatic personal and social changes, it is also taking place in the middle of a UCU union action of short of strike that is scheduled to last until the end of April.

Social distancing and working from home may mean that ‘the home’ is becoming overcrowded.  Not everyone has a home study or office. As of 20^th March 2020, homes became even more crowded as schools closed and children who would usually be out of the home during school hours are now in need of care. The vulnerability of older people and other ‘at risk’ groups to COVID-19 places even further strains on the resources of ‘the home’ as academics working from home may find themselves having to help their elderly, vulnerable and at risk relatives, family members and partners take the precautionary measure of ‘self-isolating’ for the recommended 12 weeks.

As of 23rd March, the time spent obtaining basic groceries in a context of panic buying in supermarkets, new social distancing measures and the collapse of online deliveries has grown exponentially. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that academics have not been immune to the effects of the pursuit of neo-liberal economic policies and the destruction of the welfare state. COVID-19 comes hot on the heels of a protracted industrial dispute between UCU and UUK. The effect is real and visceral as they see their normal monthly salary reduced as a result of their Universities deducting 14 days of salary for taking part in the strike action of February and March. Many, particularly younger academics and those with children, find themselves in communities of high density accommodation which provides one of the preconditions for a viral ‘hotspot’ with all that now means on top of reduced salaries and increased employer expectations.

Across the sector there are many who are willing to ‘pivot’ in order to maintain teaching for, as professionals, we are concerned for our students. The fact that this is an ethical choice ought to be acknowledged. As the sociology of professions teaches us, one of the defining ethical values of professionals is a commitment to altruism and clientelism (Carlen 2012). In our work as educators, we serve our students and make decisions based on what is right and good for them. We don’t do this because it serves the (economic) purposes of our universities, or simply because it is in our employment contracts. Most of us will do the work necessary to ensure that our students are able to carry on with their education despite the burdens of the new context of working from home.

REF, The Political, The Personal and The Ethical

For me, the nature of the REF has numbed the critical social science imagination and makes the coming ethical research crises we are facing very real. In an earlier book chapter, Carlen and myself argued (in the context of criminology)

• that ideals of professionalism and open scientific inquiry were being threatened by a combination of marketisation and corporatisation of research,
• and that ideologies of ‘the market’ and corporatism, combined with REF, ensures researchers direct their imaginations towards securing large grants and ‘impactful’ research,
• alternative criminologies (read critical) demand that meanings of crime and justice and their relationship with social justice are constantly called into question and analysed rather than accepted, and
• it is not possible (or even desirable) to establish in criminology the type of impact beloved of REF whilst critiquing the shifting meanings of crime and justice (Carlen and Phoenix 2017).

I would extend that argument to social science more generally, especially now.

The overriding question I have found myself asking for the last two weeks: what is the research that we do for? Is it there to secure our individual University’s strategic research objectives of success in REF and thereby a larger slice of the Government’s research monies and/or bragging rights that help in the academic marketplace to attract students? If REF went away forever, would we still pursue our individual 5 year personal research plans? How prepared are we to intellectually ‘pivot’ and stand up to what COVID-19 and the anti-contagion measures mean? From my perspective as someone who started as an academic before the first fully audit based Research Assessment Exercise in 1996, two decades of managerialism and audit exercises has changed what ‘doing research’ means for many academics. They see it as something they do in order to fulfil their university’s employment expectations: to progress their careers whilst also playing their part in achieving ‘a good outcome’ in REF. Enter the rise of the instrumental (pragmatic?) academic.

Alongside shifting meanings of ‘research’, I would argue that the meaning of ‘ethics’ in universities has changed. Whereas once ‘ethics’ referred to morality in action, it increasingly refers to risk and liability – or what Carlen and I called “amateur socio-actuarialism”. I’d like to invoke that older sense of the term ethics and suggest that nothing we do at work is ethically (or politically) neutral. In an everyday sort of way, our professional conduct is shaped by and within a set of usually tacit, occasionally explicit agreements between us and our employers (our employment contract) and between us and our learned societies (our codes of conduct or codes of ethics) as well as between us and our colleagues and our research participants. Without wishing to be repetitive, these agreements take place within a further set of normative values about professionalism and scientific inquiry – even if, as argued above, the last three decades has seen an erosion and corruption of these ideals.

My ethical dilemma then: at a moment of extreme global crisis, do I ask my colleagues to continue to work and prepare for the REF? Do I do so when I know that ‘work from home’, ‘social isolation’ and ‘social distance’ means that any former distinctions between private and public life are rapidly becoming utterly meaningless? Do I ask them to press on with collecting evidence of the impact knowing full well that such is likely to come from third sector and governmental organisations who themselves may be overburdened with the coming health crisis? Do I ask my colleagues to carry on, as though nothing has changed except the *how* of what we do? Finally, do I ask the imaginative social scientists who are part of the UoA for which I am responsible to spend their precious few hours and moments of head space to help my university – whose social justice mission I admire – to prepare for an audit that many never come, in a world that may never return to ‘normal’? Particularly where some universities have – historically and contemporarily – created REF managements systems that also serve to discipline the workforce, introduce job insecurity and through an ideology of REF ‘stars’ create divisive hierarchies between professional academics. (How else to we theorise the category ‘research active’?) No. I can’t in all good conscience do any of that.

Afterthought

I’m off to do whatever I can to support my students, get prisoners out of the coming death traps that will be our prisons and women and children out of the prisons of their abusive homes.

Events have rather over-taken me and my dilemmas. Research England (the governing body in charge of the REF) have announced a postponement of the exercise in light of the unfolding COVID-19 catastrophe. Yet, still colleagues at the OU and elsewhere are continuing to do REF preparations. It has been suggested to me that people need the routines and discipline of work to continue in this new world. Others have suggested that their disciplines and work have nothing to do with COVID-19 and want to continue with REF preparations, therefore. Still others have suggested that there is only so much teaching and support that can be done, that administrative jobs are at stake or that their roles (as professional academics) are solely about REF.

To them I say this: the world is changing rapidly and what it needs right now are critical social scientists who have the skills, knowledge and expertise to understand it, to hold government to account for its (in)actions, and most of all to contribute their time, labour and energy to heading off the human tragedies that are within sight. Or maybe just to survive. This is not a time to do REF preparation work. With that, I’m off to do whatever I can to support my students, get prisoners out of the coming death traps that will be our prisons and women and children out of the prisons of their abusive homes.