A number of universities that saw a large shift towards academics being classified as teaching staff in the lead-up to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework also jumped up the institutional rankings for the exercise, a data analysis suggests.
Of the 10 universities that saw the biggest pre-REF percentage-point movement in the share of full-time academic staff classified as being “teaching-only”, six rose by 17 places or more in Times Higher Education’s overall ranking based on the grade point average of the results.
However, the other four institutions dropped down the ranking, and there appears to be no obvious pattern overall where institutions that radically reduced their share of staff in “research-only” or “teaching and research” roles before the REF were more successful.
