Injunction sought on PBRF report appendix
Victoria University of Wellington this afternoon joined with the University of Auckland and obtained an interim
injunction from the High Court against the release of part of the Tertiary Education Commission's report on the
Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF).
The injunction concerns one appendix in the report that attempts to compare the average quality categories or grades of
New Zealand universities in the PBRF exercise with British universities in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).
Professor Stuart McCutcheon, Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington, said it was with the greatest
reluctance that both universities had decided to take the extreme step of initiating legal action.
"Vice-Chancellors have objected strongly to the inclusion of this information in the report since we were notified by
the Commission of its intentions two weeks ago and have repeatedly sought its removal. It is totally invalid and
inappropriate to compare the performance of universities in two different countries with significantly different
tertiary funding systems and assessed according to quite different criteria. It is like comparing apples with oranges
and will damage the reputation and standing of New Zealand's universities both domestically and internationally.
"We recognise that academic staff at tertiary education providers are, with some anticipation, awaiting the release of
the results of the PBRF exercise. We have written to the Commission to advise that we have no concern with the
substantive portion of the report and we trust that this action will not affect the planned release date next week."
ENDS