Universities should think carefully about exploiting new rules that will allow star researchers to submit as many outputs as they wish to the next Research Excellence Framework (REF), a senior Research England official has warned.
Under the new rules for REF 2028, announced last month, researchers will no longer be restricted to submitting a maximum of five research outputs as part of a shake-up that will also see the removal of the REF 2021 policy that required all research-active staff to enter at least one output over the seven-year assessment cycle.
Those changes to decouple individuals and outputs are designed to encourage a focus on team-based submissions, and remove the need for ‘special circumstance’ explanations of why researchers did not submit any outputs, but they have raised concerns that resources might become more focused on prolific leading researchers likely to produce 4* research, rather than encouraging excellence across a broader pool of researchers.
Speaking at an event at UCL, jointly organised with the Foundation for Science and Technology and the Research on Research Institute, Steven Hill, director of research at Research England, which runs the REF on behalf of all UK research funders, said he acknowledged the risks inherent in removing the individual cap on REF outputs but noted that institutions could be marked down in other scores if they were not seen to support researchers more widely.
