The UK’s next Research Excellence Framework has been delayed until 2029 amid concerns over plans to fully break the link between individual staff and university submissions.
The exercise, whose results were due to be published in December 2028, will now conclude in the final month of 2029, it was announced on 7 December.
That decision was made “in recognition of the complexities” for universities in “the preparation for using Hesa [Higher Education Statistics Agency] data to determine REF volume measures” and “fully breaking the link between individual staff and institutional submissions,” said the team behind the REF, which is run by Research England and its funding council counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Under new proposals for REF 2028 – now REF 2029 – research-active staff will not be required to submit a minimum number of outputs (which was a stipulation in REF 2021) nor will they be limited to entering a maximum number of outputs (five in 2021).
