Research staff will not be obliged to submit outputs to the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) as part of the biggest shake-up of the UK’s national research audit in its history.
The exercise, which is used to distribute about £2 billion annually in block-grant research funding, will no longer require a minimum number of submissions from every research-active member of staff assessed by the REF, Research England has confirmed.
In the 2021 exercise, those with research responsibilities had to submit at least one research output and could enter a maximum of five outputs, with institutions required to submit an average of 2.5 outputs per researcher for each unit of assessment. In 2014, researchers who were chosen by their institutions for participation had to submit four outputs from a six-year period in the absence of mitigating circumstances – a demand that many believed drove game-playing and undue pressure to publish in some disciplines.
Under the proposed changes for REF 2028, published on 15 June, institutions will still need to submit an average of 2.5 outputs for every research-active member of staff, but there will be no limit on the number of submissions, nor a minimum level of submissions, for each researcher.
