Ancient cultures of conceit reloaded? a comparative look at the rise of metrics in higher education

When considering the power of metrics and audit culture in higher education, are we at risk of romanticising the past? Have academics ever really worked in an environment free from ‘measurement’? Roger Burrows draws on his own recollection of the 1986 Research Selectivity Exercise (RSE), scholarly work on academic labour and fictional portrayals of academic life, which all demonstrate the substantial expansion of the role of metrics in the contemporary academy.