In the retelling, a certain amount of cynicism crosses the lips of those who survived the imposition of Extinguished Professors, as well as those diehard adherents of the Humboldtian relationship between teaching and research who see this as the next step on the Road to Perdition (the first steps have been taken long ago through the increasing intrusion of administration into time which should have been used for teaching and research).
There are those among us who believe that the first step in increasing research output should be to record, acknowledge and support the research which currently happens. Currently this is only partially done - staff on academic conditions of employment in academic departments are asked to declare their research output. Staff on other conditions, or located elsewhere, are not routinely or regularly or comprehensively included in such exercises, with the result that much of this research activity is invisible within the University. Research policies at University and Faculty level are silent about research not conducted by staff on academic conditions of employment located within academic departments. Because of its invisibilty, the extent of this research is unknown. Is precious income being lost, as a result - and if so, how much? Might it offset the additional costs of including all categories of staff, in all locations within the University, in the gathering of research output data?
Might it even justify extending support to these excluded, invisible researchers, whether through allowing them to participate in programmes to develop and support "new" researchers, or allowing them to apply / compete for funding to present papers at international conferences, or help them applying for funding from research funding councils or other funders? We don't know. Like the elephant in the dark, we keep bumping into it and we know it exists, but we have no idea of what it looks like or the size of it, for now.
But a University that purports to being "Research Led" should perhaps show some interest in finding out. Possibly even before further affirming the affirmed.