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Research Impact: Strengthening the Excellence Framework will explore the next steps and rules for the Research Excellence Framework in 2021, offering practical guidance on delivering high quality submissions across disciplines, institutions and projects.
The results of the next REF exercise will again be used to inform the allocation of government funding to universities for research, almost £2 billion of annual research investment. The previous exercise, in 2014, assessed nearly 200,000 research outputs and 7,000 impact case studies submitted by more than 52,000 academics in 154 institutions. Lord Stern’s independent review of the process for accessing university research was published in summer 2016 and new proposals are incremental, in recognition of the additional burden of any new processes. Key recommendations include a new institutional level assessment to reward collaboration on interdisciplinary activities; widening and deepening the notion of research “impact” to include influence on public engagement, culture and on teaching; and, perhaps the biggest shift, to include all research active staff and creating a more flexible framework to ease the pressure and simplify management. Will this encourage academics to research new areas and develop research activity on a longer time scale?
The Higher Education Funding Council for England, alongside the three funding bodies, have just concluded the consultation period on the Stern Review recommendations with the results due to be published in the summer of 2017. Further clarity on how research active staff will be measured and defined, the range and number of outputs per person required and which indicators in the new environment section are to be used will be set for REF 2021.
This timely event will help support universities and research institutions in delivering world-class research and ensure they adhere to the developing assessment criteria. The agenda includes practical learning sessions and leading stakeholder presentations designed to help higher education institutions improve REF implications, processes and interdisciplinary research for REF 2021 submissions.