Social policy excellence – peer review or metrics?

An article said that although metrics-based assessment could predict reasonably well the overall outcome of the 2008 research assessment exercise for social work/social policy and administration in terms of research environment, it could not do so in terms of research outputs. It was sometimes argued that citation counts provided an alternative approach, but it was one fraught with difficulties. Academics did not, in fact, routinely chose to submit their most cited work. At least in this subject, metrics were more suited as ‘handmaiden’ to peer review than its replacement.