A blog post from CHEAD REF Forum Co-Chairs Kamini Vellodi (RCA) and Damian Sutton (Coventry University) following the CHEAD REF Forum event, hosted by the University of Westminster (Feb 2025).
The CHEAD REF Forum blew the dust off the “how to do REF” instruction manual in February, with an event hosted at the University of Westminster, kickstarting the Forum’s programme of support and debate as we gear up for REF 2029. It may be hard to believe that we are already halfway through the REF cycle, and announcements from Research England indicate changes that need to be carefully considered now.
The event was aimed at research leaders and managers, who may be acting as unit of assessment coordinators for their institutions, as well as those who may be considering an application to be a REF2029 panel or sub-panel member . The deadline for this is 28th April 2025, for those interested.
The headline event was a talk by Prof Juan Cruz, Principal at Edinburgh College of Art, who spoke about his personal experience of being a sub-panellist for UoA 32 (Art and Design) in REF 2021. Prof Cruz provided helpful detail on the process of expert review, how rigour and coverage was achieved, and what a potential reviewer might expect in terms of timeframes and workload commitment. He particularly praised the collective effort and teamwork with other panellists. He also spoke about the invaluable benefit for reviewers professionally and in terms of insight into and appreciation of the field. The recruitment process is open call this time, in an attempt to improve diversity of experience on the panel, and Prof Cruz’s reflections offered helpful insights for those who might be considering making an application.
The second part of the event involved group discussion around what we know about REF 2029 so far, and was the first in what will be an ongoing programme of CHEAD REF events. It is clear from the breakout workshop discussions that the initial changes, particularly the new volume measure (how big a submission needs to be), present new questions and potential challenges, especially during a period of uncertainty as universities reshape after a series of economic blows.
A lively debate centred around the new ‘People, Culture and Environment (PCE)’ section (formerly REF5 environment narrative). The pilot is currently being undertaken by a number of institutions and includes UoA33: Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies and is expected to conclude in Autumn this year (watch this space). Whilst this will undoubtedly provide invaluable feedback that will also be useful for Unit 32, it is not an exact fit – approaches to ‘research enabling’ staff might differ.
A key concern running through the discussions is the potential impact of the proposed changes on equality, diversity and inclusivity. Whilst the unit improved in REF2021, the new rules intended to decouple outputs from submitting staff could have an unintended negative effect. For example, a PCE narrative could present a diverse and inclusive environment which is not reflected in the submitted outputs. The new approach to PCE will potentially allow institutions to celebrate the contribution of technical and support staff, as well as research assistants, who are so vital to art school culture, but a disjunction from outputs raises potential issues of ethics, where such ‘research enabling’ staff do not receive the same level of resource for research from their institution as those with ‘significant responsibility for research’ (i.e. those with research in their contracts).
Other questions that emerged from the session will doubtless be addressed as we get more information back from Research England: How is the category of ‘research enabling’ staff defined? What is ‘engagement’ (which is now added to the impact component of the submission), and how can this be robustly accounted for when each unit does engagement so differently? How can we maintain institutional memory of long-form outputs in art practice, writing, and curation, when universities often don’t have a funding paper trail for arts research in their research information management system? How do we address and mitigate risks in relation to the increasingly prominent role of AI in all aspects of research – including writing PCE and output narratives?
A lively discussion of practice research and REF is likely to continue throughout the rest of the cycle, and this event was no exception. It was heartening to hear from Prof Cruz of the 2021 panel’s positive approach to practice – and other non standard, multi-component – outputs, rewarding excellence wherever it is found. At this stage, concerns exist around the development of institutional repositories, whether these are bespoke for practice or an adjunct to the dominant repository systems such as Elsevier’s Pure. A key question is whether practice needs its own type of system, which would require a huge effort from unit leaders to convince cash strapped polytechnic institutions to invest, or if a joint protocol for practice research presentation is better, which can be picked up by catalogues and academic search engines. Either approach has the capacity to make practice research more shareable and accessible, which is surely a vital and necessary advance for our sector. But the window for real action is closing, and the impact of no action could be a regression to apparently ‘safer’ outputs that do not reflect the extraordinary breadth and diversity of practice and multi-format research sharing in which the sector excels.
It is clear that CHEAD can focus future events on such issues over the next few years, and the workshop demonstrated that there is a clear appetite for sharing of best practice, ideas, approaches and solutions to common problems. It reminded us of the enormous value of enabling such collective spaces for exchange and mutual support, and of the vital importance of community in growing sectoral confidence. REF preparation can be stressful for researchers, who can often feel isolated or misunderstood in a heavily bureaucratic process. CHEAD can listen, advocate, champion and connect us, and because of this, the process of preparing for REF2029 in art and design research starts to look oddly exciting.