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Research Excellence Framework REF2029 – What is different compared to REF2021?
A Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP) took place last year, with four UK higher education funding bodies publishing key initial decisions on the high-level design of the next REF and outlining issues for further consultation. These decisions signal a move towards a broader approach to research assessment, and provide a high-level framework and plan for how the next REF will look. In this blog post, Stuart Morris, REF and Research Policy Manager, explains what is the same and what has changed for REF2029, and what are the next steps in the REF timeline.
REF 2029 - How did these changes and differences come about?
The proposals were presented after two years of work by the UK higher education funding bodies and included wide consultation with the sector. An initial decisions consultation followed - Leeds Beckett University was one of 260 institutions who took part. In December last year, the funding bodies outlined the decisions and next steps to be taken.
What is the same and what is different for REF2029?
It is clear that there are still many areas of the design of REF2029 that are under consideration, however this is what we know so far.
What has been confirmed as the same?
- REF2029 will retain the REF2021 Unit of Assessment (UoA) structure, and will still include advisory panels on equality, diversity and inclusion as well as for interdisciplinary research. This provides some continuity and means we do not have to change our internal structures to address any new UoA groups.
- Assessment will still be undertaken by an expert sub-panel for each UoA, working under the guidance of four Main Panels:
- Main Panel A: Medicine, health and life sciences.
- Main Panel B: Physical sciences, engineering and mathematics.
- Main Panel C: Social sciences.
- Main Panel D: Arts and humanities.
- As in REF2021, institutions will be required to submit outputs, impact case studies and a statement relating to each of the disciplinary areas in which they have research activity, alongside an institutional statement. Although there are some key changes, which we will look at later in the blog.
What is different?
- REF2029 will be more inclusive, capturing the valuable contributions of a wider range of research and research-enabling staff.
- In REF2029 the work of all researchers and research-enabling staff will be eligible for submission. These changes are intended to increase the inclusivity of the assessment and provide an environment that is supportive of researchers who move into academia from other sectors. What this means is that you do not have to be an academic with significant responsibility for research (or SIGRES for short) for your research to be used in the REF.
- SIGRES will still be important, and REF2029 will take a new approach to determining research volume, moving fully away from any assessment of individuals. Research volume will be determined from average staff numbers with SIGRES over multiple years.
- As staff are no longer entered directly into REF there will now not be any minimum or maximum contributions of any individuals. In REF2021 staff had to enter a minimum of one and no more than five outputs attributed to them in the submission. This is no longer the case.
The three elements familiar from REF2014 and REF2021 have been renamed, their content adjusted, and their weightings rebalanced to reflect this:
Outputs is now called - Contribution to knowledge and understanding (50% weighting – down from 60% in REF2021)
Output submissions will now need to include a “structured statement” covering their “wider contribution to knowledge and understanding in the disciplinary area.”
Impact is now called - Engagement and impact (25% weighting – same as REF2021)
A “structured explanatory statement which sets out the wider contribution of research activities to society and the economy” will need to be included alongside impact statements. Institutions will be required to submit a minimum of one impact case study per disciplinary submission. The 2* minimum quality threshold for the research that underpins impact case studies has also been removed.
People and culture and environment (25% weighting – up from 15% in REF2021)
This element replaces the environment element of REF2014 and REF2021 and will be expanded to include an assessment of research culture. Work is underway to decide which metrics, data or indicators could be used, but potential indicators could include, “equality, diversity and inclusion data, information on the career progression and paths of current and former research staff, outcomes of staff surveys, and information on open research practices and improvement of research robustness and reproducibility”. The REF team will be conducting a pilot during 2024/25 to evaluate this element.
Further consultation and delay to the exercise
In December 2023, it was announced that the next REF had been delayed from 2028 to 2029 to give institutions and assessors more time to prepare. The reasons for this were:
- To give more time to prepare for using Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data to determine REF volume measures.
- To complete work designed to fully break the link between individual staff and institutional submissions.
- To allow institutions to rework their Codes of Practice to ensure REF output submissions are representative of staff with research responsibilities.
A number of changes to the REF2029 exercise were also confirmed following consultation on the Future Research Assessment Programme in the summer of 2023, along with an announcement of further areas still under consideration.
Confirmed changes included:
- The minimum number of impact case studies an institution can submit per disciplinary submission will be reduced to one.
- The 2* minimum quality threshold for the research that underpins impact case studies has been removed.
- Research sole-authored by postgraduate research students (including PhD theses) will not be eligible for REF2029.
- Research sole-authored by individuals employed on contracts with no research-related expectations also cannot be submitted.
- Research-active staff will not be required to submit a minimum or maximum number of outputs to REF2029.
- It was confirmed that the overall Unit of Assessment structure will remain unchanged from REF2021.
Ongoing work still under consideration:
- For REF2029, institutions may submit any output with a “demonstrable and substantive link” to the submitting institution - but the REF team said “further work is needed to develop our guidance” on this.
- The REF team reported “mixed views” on the proposed sliding scale for weighting of impact case studies and will undertake further work on this.
- Further work is also required to ensure that breaking the link between individual staff members and unit submissions does not have “unintended consequences.”
Next steps
In Spring 2024 further decisions will be published on the REF2029 website, providing more detail on the proposals for REF2029. Further information and updates on these developments will be provided on our University’s website and via our blog.
Stuart Morris
Stuart Morris is Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Research Policy Manager in the Research and Information Governance team, within Research and Enterprise services at Leeds Beckett University.
