Research England Report Highlights Researchers’ Mixed Attitudes Towards REF

A major study commissioned by Research England has revealed a mixed and varied response in attitudes towards the Research Excellence Framework (REF) among researchers.

The REF is a national evaluation system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions and has run since the 1980s. However, in this time there have been few attempts to gain a comprehensive overview of perceptions and attitudes towards the REF and to find out which aspects of it are viewed favourably or unfavourably. This review builds on a pilot study conducted in 2019 that explored the possibility of initiating a widespread study in this regard.

This latest review was conducted by RAND Europe in partnership with the University of Cardiff and the University of Sheffield. It garnered responses from institutions between October 2020 and January 2021, while preparations for REF 2021 were in the process of being finalised.

The findings were based on nearly 3,000 responses to a survey of researchers as well as direct interviews with researchers, research managers and institutional leads. Based on this approach, the report finds that the majority of researchers believe the REF has had the following impacts:

• Increased open research (that is, making published work, methodology, evidence and/or data widely available).
• Increased public relevance of research (societal impact).
• Increased quantity of research (the number of outputs produced).
• Increased game playing (such as staff recruitment, embellishment of impact).
• Decreased authenticity of research that reflects the researchers/research community’s intellectual interests.
• Decreased novelty of research (eg less pursuing of ‘blue sky’ research that may not yield predictable outcomes).

The majority of researchers stated that the detrimental qualities of the REF are negative for them and that, overall, the REF has a negative influence on UK researchers. Researchers working in research-intensive HEIs perceived more of a negative impact on the research community compared with colleagues in less research-intensive institutions.

Furthermore, respondents from arts and humanities disciplines felt most strongly about the negative influence of the REF, while those in physical sciences, engineering and mathematics were least negative. The big driver of negative attitudes is the burden of the exercise, and specifically that the burden is perceived to outweigh the benefits. Related to this, some participants questioned whether the REF overlaps with other assessments undertaken at other stages of the research.

Despite this however, the majority of researchers stated that the REF had not influenced their own research, highlighting a disconnect between the perceived impact on others and the real influence individuals perceive on themselves. The survey also found that the majority of academics believe that changes to the rules for REF 2021 are positive for them, especially the move to submitting all research-active staff and selecting outputs at unit rather than individual level.

Looking ahead, respondents conveyed a desire for the exercise to be simplified and to make it less burdensome. There is also a lack of understanding about what the REF is trying to achieve, and the report urges the UK funding bodies to clearly set out the exercise’s purpose and desired outcomes.

The findings of the study will inform thinking on future research assessment as part of a wider programme of work launched by the four UK higher education funding bodies in May 2021. The bodies will invite feedback about the strategic perspective on REF 2021 from all institutions that participated in this exercise.