Research on institutional behaviour under external quality assurance pressure suggests that governance reforms may cluster in the period leading up to formal review. Pending verification of Smith and Lee (2024), upstream bibliography annotation (inferred from a publisher abstract, not the retrieved source) indicates a possible 18-month pre-review clustering pattern. This claim should be treated as provisional until the full text is retrieved and confirmed.
If the 18-month pre-review clustering pattern is confirmed by Smith and Lee (2024), longitudinal designs that sample at fixed calendar intervals may systematically over-sample or under-sample reform activity depending on their alignment with the review calendar. Final design recommendations will be updated once the source verification is complete.