Being a REF panellist

This is the second in a series of blogs following our online Town Hall session on applying to be a panel member for REF 2029 which you can re-watch here. In this blog, Chair of Main Panel D Greg Walker, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, shares his experiences of being a panel member in previous REFs, and what he expects to see this time around. Read Rebecca Fairbairn’s blog on the key points for potential applicants.

The task ahead

Having been involved in four REFs (and their predecessors, Research Assessment Exercises) as, successively, sub-panellist, deputy-chair, and sub-panel and main panel chair, I can speak feelingly of both the importance and the responsibility of contributing to REF 2029 as a sub-panel member. The REF is crucially important in evaluating UK research, celebrating its strengths, and informing the distribution of the QR funds that support so much innovative, blue-skies research across the sector. It is a privilege to have been involved in this work, and it offers very real pleasures too. But, make no mistake, it is a substantial commitment, of both time and energy. REF 2021 assessed over 185,000 research outputs and REF 2029 will be on a similar scale.

Time commitment

So, if you are thinking of applying to be involved in REF 2029 (and I hope you are!), be prepared to invest considerable time over the coming years, both during the criteria-setting phase, when sub-panels collectively finesse the guidance offered to submitting institutions in their disciplines, and during the assessment phase, later in the cycle, when the work of assessing all the outputs, impact case studies, and other parts of the submission takes place.

Based on the review of work across all the panels conducted in REF 2021, the funding bodies estimate that sub-panel members can expect a time commitment of 40 to 60 days over REF 2029. But this is just an estimate (institutions haven’t yet announced what they intend to submit, we’ll find that out in 2027). What we do know is the role will be demanding, comparable in many ways to a full-time job at times during the intense assessment period. This is not something that can be done in and around ‘the day job’. So do think carefully about if and how that commitment might be possible.

Institutional support

A crucial step, if you are thinking of applying, is to talk to your employing institution now, to ensure that it is happy for you to apply and willing to support you in practical terms (such as through workload relief/buyout arrangements). I was lucky enough to be granted some relief from teaching in the assessment periods of 2014 and 2021, and this was vital for freeing up time for assessing over 400 outputs, many of them long-form works (monographs, novels, performance pieces, and datasets) as well as complex institutional and departmental statements and descriptions of impact work.

The work itself

What, then, does the work involve? A sub-panel is a collective body, and one which, if it works well, becomes a real community, dedicated to a collective purpose which, while arduous, is also hugely rewarding. The earliest stages will see the group meeting, ideally in person, to scope out the scale and nature of the task ahead, both in setting the guidance for institutions in the criteria-setting phase and assessing the submissions themselves. There is a good deal of preliminary discussion and calibration: what might a 4*, 3*, 2* or 1* output, research culture, or case study look like across the many different output types, sub-disciplinary fields, or types of institution that make up the research ecosystem in a discipline like History, Mathematics, or Veterinary Science? Sub-panels collectively consider examples of submissions and discuss what they should be looking for and rewarding in each case. And then, with a sense of how the overall guidance applies within their fields, begin the work of assessing the materials submitted, supported by specialists with expertise in the wider societal benefits of research, research cultures, and questions of inclusiveness and diversity.

Various kinds of submission throw up different challenges. Much of the work submitted may be interdisciplinary in scope or span different sub-fields within a discipline. In this case expertise can be shared across sub-panels to assess or co-assess work. This work will take place between winter 2028 and late-autumn 2029, aiming to produce a final report by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the main panels, covering broader cross-disciplinary fields (from Main Panel A: Medical, Health, and Life Sciences to Main Panel D: Arts and Humanities), will be monitoring progress and emerging grade profiles across the sub-panels, ensuring consistency of approach and rigour of assessment.

Why you should consider applying

I hope this gives a sense of both the scale and the nature of the work involved and hasn’t left you too daunted by the prospect. The good news is that, in my experience, sub-panels work collectively and very supportively. You wouldn’t be alone in facing the tasks I have described. The work is also hugely enjoyable and rewarding. Having had a unique opportunity to read the outputs of my colleagues across the sector at scale and in a concentrated period of time, having discovered the work they have been doing with communities and organisations outside academia, and read about the ways they support each other to do that work, I, like my fellow sub-panellists, have always emerged from a REF exercise with a real sense of awe and admiration for what people are doing, and for the collective strength of the discipline(s) we have assessed. You would, I am sure, feel the same, and learn a huge amount about your own disciplines from involvement in the REF, renewing your sense of their vitality and their importance in the wider research landscape.

So, I hope you will consider applying to be involved in whatever role best suits your expertise and experience.