REF 2029

What is REF?

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. Carried out by the UK’s four higher education funding organisations, research-conducting institutions that receive public funding select and submit their best research for a peer review process, to determine the quality of the body of research conducted in units of assessment (disciplines) over a period of around 7 years.

REF 2029

The current REF exercise requires submission in late 2028, and you can find out more about the national exercise on the REF website.

Following publication of the results of the previous exercise (REF 2021), the funding bodies in the UK commissioned the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP) to explore possible approaches to the assessment of UK higher education research performance. The product of the FRAP was a set of recommendations to expand the definition of research excellence 

REF 2029 will have three assessed elements, with their content adjusted and their weightings rebalanced:

• People, culture and environment replaces the environment element and will be expanded to include research culture
• Contribution to knowledge and understanding replaces the outputs element. It will largely be based on assessment of research outputs, but will also include evidence of broader contributions to the advancement of the discipline
• Engagement and impact replaces the impact element. It is similar to the impact element of REF 2014 and will consist of impact case studies and an accompanying statement

REF 2029 will move further away from the assessment of individuals. There will be a new approach to determining research volume, where the number of staff with significant responsibility for research is drawn directly from the HESA staff record. This is the annually collected data from universities, colleges, and other HE providers about academic and non-academic staff who have a contract of employment with the HE provider. The volume measure will be based on the average number of staff over a number of years

In REF 2029 there will be no minimum of maximum number of outputs contributed by an individual. This is intended to increase inclusivity of the assessment and provide an environment which is supportive of researchers establishing themselves, or moving into academia

Our approach to submission

The University of Edinburgh is committed to conducting responsible research assessment, and in 2022 became a signatory of Coalition of Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). CoARA is a European initiative with international reach, with a goal that the sector should better recognise the diverse outputs, practices, and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research through an emphasis on qualitative judgement in assessment, for which peer review is essential, supported by the responsible use of quantitative indicators.

We signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) in 2019. DORA is a worldwide initiative covering all scholarly disciplines and all key stakeholders including funders, publishers, professional societies, institutions, and researchers. It recognises the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated across the scientific research sector. 

More information on the Responsible Research Assessment & Use of Metrics 

Our Code of Practice for REF 2029, therefore, will be written in compliance with these values. Once finalised and approved, the Code of Practice will be made available on this page.

REF 2021

In the previous exercise, REF 2021, the University of Edinburgh submitted 2563 FTE in 28 Units of Assessment, or disciplines. This was an increase of 46.3% since REF 2014. 

REF 2021 had three assessed elements 

• Research Outputs
• Research Impact Case Studies
• Research Environment

We submitted 6,400 outputs and 191 impact case studies to be assessed. Many of our school webpages highlight our successes in the relevant disciplinary areas in REF 2021

More information on our performance (UoE staff only)

As part of our REF 2021 preparations for submission the University of Edinburgh REF 2021 Code of Practice was written that detailed how we would make decisions and select fairly the data and information that would be assessed. 

Read the UoE REF 2021 Code of Practice

As part of the due diligence in conducting the REF 2021 exercise, Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) were conducted, and presented to the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (EDIC). 

Read the UoE REF 2021 EIA