ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between research policy, institutional change and the substance of Geography. It discusses the implications of some changes for individual researchers and institutions, and for the positioning and development of geographical expertise within this changing research environment. In institutional terms, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), and the funding that flows from it, is an important device through which intellectual capacity and energy is converted into hard cash and into organizational, not just individual, status and credibility. Institutional reliance on individual effort of this kind is revealed by the importance of quality publications in the criteria for promotion. The emphasis on evidence-based policy demands some skills in assembling and analysing large bodies of quantitative and qualitative data. Over the past 40 years, Geography has developed considerable expertise in this respect, although much of this is now somewhat fragmented.
