This is of lesser priority. While this may not have been a deliberate aim of the RAE when initially conceived, it is clear that it has had a very strong effect on internal institutional research management practices. The future of the RAE is itself to be examined. This exercise is well accepted by the UK HEIs and admired and emulated by many other countries. Nonetheless it would be helpful if the system of research assessment could be redesigned with a lighter touch than at present.
Excellent research is innovative, methodologically sound and important.
Contributions to professional practice, provision of social services, policy development or to economic development are equally legitimate. Basic research will make a difference to the discipline as known internationally. For applied research with impacts upon users, the users may be local ones, but the standards of the work that they use can still be compared on world-wide terms. Excellent research training will produce higher degrees, and the number and rates of completion could be a measure of excellence here. But such indicators are not easily applied to social sciences.