Britain is abolishing its Research Assessment Exercise, a periodic analysis of every university scientist that has vast influence over the distribution of research grants across the country, The Guardian reported today. The RAE, as it’s known, will be replaced by an unspecified system of “metrics,” the chancellor of the exchequer said in announcing the plan. Critics of the RAE said it consumed huge amounts of time better spent on other work, and they blamed it for widening the gap between elite and nonelite institutions and for destroying academic departments whose members failed to measure up.