New Zealand universities spend a great deal of time and money evaluating the research outputs of their staff in the cause of Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF). This time and money is wasted since the assumptions that lie behind this process are fatally flawed and the results are neither valid nor fair. Additionally PBRF is inconsistent with the universities’ obligations to be ‘critic and conscience’ for society and to scholarship, itself. The paper argues that no further assessments of this kind should be undertaken.