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REF consultation, November 2009 - December 2009

The four UK higher education funding bodies issued a second consultation on proposals for the Research Excellence Framework (REF), including proposals to assess the impact of research on the economy and society, and for citation information to be used by some panels to inform their review of research outputs.

A summary of our proposals can be found in 'The Research Excellence Framework: A brief guide to the proposals' (Adobe PDF 124K).

In March 2010 we published a summary of responses to the second consultation exercise, and announced the initial decisions and next steps in the design and implementation of the framework.

The proposals were developed through a substantive bibliometrics pilot exercise and extensive advice and discussions with a range of stakeholders. A range of reports and documents that informed the proposals are available below.

Assessing impact

Initial proposals for the assessment of impact were informed by:

In setting out the initial proposals we committed to running a substantial pilot exercise to test and develop the approach to assessing impact.

Expert Advisory Groups

We established Expert Advisory Groups and held a series of meetings with these groups to discuss, and take advice on all key aspects of the REF proposals as they developed. We have produced a summary of their discussions over the series of meetings.

Equalities and diversity

We worked with the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) to review the equalities measures taken in the 2008 RAE and identify potential improvements for the REF and undertook a quantitative analysis of staff selected for the 2008 RAE.

Burden

We commissioned a review of the accountability burden of the 2008 RAE, and discussed the options for reducing burden in the REF with a range of key stakeholders.

Other work

We worked with the Research Information Network (RIN) to investigate the influence of research assessment upon researchers' publication behaviours. We also worked with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the research councils and a number of institutions to develop and support improvements to research information management.

Last updated 25 March 2010