‘Half in, half out’ approach to REF 2029 outputs ‘not enough’

Plans to allow portability of long-form outputs such as academic books in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) have been criticised for creating a “half in-half out” approach to decoupling scholars from their work.

Under sweeping changes announced this week in the face of intense opposition from universities and academics, the REF 2029 will partially reverse its flagship reform of severing the link between researchers and their scholarly outputs by allowing academics to retain ownership of long-form or extended process outputs for five years.

It follows growing criticism from sector bodies representing the arts, humanities and social sciences that institutions would be able to submit academic books or other longer-form outputs for staff they had since made redundant, as long as the academic was employed at some point during the two-year census window which opened in September.

The reversal of that policy for often double-weighted long-form outputs has been widely welcomed, although institutions will still be able to retain outputs for sacked staff.

Jennifer Richards, chair of the English Association and professor of English literature at the University of Cambridge, said she was “delighted that an element of portability has been restored”.

Describing it as an “issue of fairness”, Richards said the compromise “respects the connection between researchers and the work they do that the commitment to absolute ‘decoupling’ had threatened”.

“It’s a ‘win’ for all researchers in a sector that has become increasingly precarious at every stage of career,” said Richards.

Margot Finn, vice-president for higher education and research at the British Academy, also described the move as “excellent and very welcome” given its “direct relevance to many of the SHAPE disciplines”.

Rosa Freedman, professor of law, conflict and global development at the University of Reading, also welcomed the revised policy but suggested the changes did not go far enough.

“Either research outputs belong to your employer because they pay your salary or they belong to the individual who has done the work and had the ideas – having this half in-half out approach to decoupling and portability doesn’t seem to have much logic,” said Freedman, who has also argued for portability of impact statements when pertaining to individuals.

“If the REF feels it has made a mistake on this issue then it should put its hands up and acknowledge there is a different and better way to approach this,” she said, arguing that “while institutions can be incredibly supportive, it is ultimately researchers who are writing grants, getting on planes to do fieldwork and producing research papers”.

Designed to end so-called game-playing seen in previous REF exercises, the end of research output portability and a single census date was meant to stop institutions from poaching star professors from rival institutions months before the cut-off date.

Early career researchers have complained, however, that the new system makes it harder to move between institutions as 4* outputs cannot be used as “currency” to effect the change.

“The REF transfer window was a problem but there are much better ways to get round this such as allowing more than one university to submit a researcher,” said Freedman.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com