I must say that I was a bit surprised to get an appeal of a BRIA decision based on the millennials battle cry of “unfairness”!  As a practicing undergraduate teacher, the last five or six years have been full of undergrads arguments that it they do not get the mark they “expect” “want” or “deserve” that I or someone must be “unfair”!  After all this is the generation that received medals just for turning up to play organised sports, even if they never went on the field when invited to!  Do not get me wrong, this is not their fault, they are only responding to the signals we have given them!

I thought it would be a few more years before these millenial folks, who overall are delightful and who are only reacting to the environment they have been brought up in, would turn up with PhD’s in hand.  But I see it is not so!

Folks, just because your research was not accepted does not mean there are grounds for an appeal. There has to be a substantive reason, for example evidence of a biased or ignorant or otherwise inappropriate reviewer, in order to launch an appeal!  

My students tell me I am one of the dinosaur instructors who does not respond to the “fairness” argument.  My response is that dinosaurs would still be with us if the fairness argument worked!