REF2021 Submission – Thank you

25 Mar 2021

A message from Professor Wendy Flavell, FSE Vice Dean for Research

Most probably by the time you read this, the University will have pushed the submit button on its return for REF2021 – it will all be over for another 7 or 8 years.  The next anxious moment will be when the results are published in April 2022.

In FSE, with your help, we have prepared a return which includes 717 eligible staff across six Units of Assessment - together submitting almost 1700 outputs, 44 impact case studies and narratives of more than 81,000 words across six environment statements.  Altogether, more than 70 staff in the Faculty have directly contributed to compiling, reviewing and checking our REF return, and many more have been involved in other ways.

Submitting the REF return is always an immense exercise, but never more so than this year, when we’ve done it while working from home, with the added pressures of blended learning and the worry of keeping our research going in a COVID-secure way.  It’s required a huge amount of hard work, persistence, determination and a lot of patience and good humour.  The ‘extra mile’ has been gone multiple times!  A special word must go to those preparing the leviathan ‘UoA12’ (engineering) return – which in itself accounts for more than 45% of the FSE return.

Because of the uncertainties we face moving forward from COVID-19, there has never been a more important time for us to make a good REF return – and with your help, I’m sure we have done that. 

The University plans to celebrate in-person on campus when we are able to, but in the meantime, a huge thanks is due to everyone who has helped in any way to achieve our submission.

Best wishes

Wendy Flavell