University submits REF 2014 return

06 Dec 2013

Professor Luke Georghiou thanks everyone involved in compiling the University's return to the Research Excellence Framework (2014), which was submitted on Tuesday, 26 November.

The REF2014 is the successor to the RAE as the UK-wide framework for assessing research in all disciplines. It is crucially important to the University, both as a benchmark of our performance against other institutions and for our public funding: the results will drive the quality-related funding allocations by HEFCE, worth approximately £84 million per year to the University (half a billion pounds across six years).

The REF2014 return includes details of our research staff, their research “outputs” (including journal articles, books, compositions, exhibitions), data on our research environment and, for the first time in REF2014, evidence of the impact that our research has had outside higher education. It will be peer-reviewed during the next twelve months and the results will be published in December 2014.

Professor Luke Georghiou, Vice-President for Research and Innovation, said:

"It is an important landmark for us to have made this submission. Around 2000 people were involved in one way or another over a two-year period in selecting and reviewing outputs, preparing data and drafting the different parts of our entry to 30 Units of Assessment (UoAs). My grateful thanks go to all of them and particularly to the UoA coordinators, the REF admin team and the Senior Review team, all of whom made massive efforts to produce what I am confident is a high quality submission that does the University credit.

"While we have to wait some time for the result, we will not be standing still in continuing our drive to produce excellent research and to ensure that we take up all opportunities for it to have an impact."