Over the past decade, the U.K government has instituted quality evaluations of all aspects of higher education and research within universities. While teaching standards and institutional procedures have been dealt with sequentially, research has been evaluated across all institutions by quinquennial assessments with a common census date for all subjects, from theology to physics and archaeology to built environment, a major undertaking involving 70 specialist assessment groups, some evaluating up to 100 submissions. In Built Environment, around 50 departments are assessed; the outcome, expressed on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), has a profound effect on departmental status and finance. While this may be of peripheral interest to readers of this column, the definition of research employed forms a starting point for a discussion of the existence, necessity and/or benefit of plumbing research, in both a contemporary and historic framework.
Research is defined for the review, due next in April 2001, as original investigation undertaken in order to gain knowledge and understanding. It includes work of direct relevance to commerce and industry, as well as the public and voluntary sectors; the invention and generation of ideas where these lead to new or substantially improved insights; and the use of existing knowledge in experimental development to produce new or substantially improved materials, devices, products and processes, including design and construction. It excludes routine testing and analysis of materials, components and processes, e.g. for the maintenance of national standards.