Professor Madeliene Atkins, Chief Executive of HEFCE, has responded to the Chair of the Political Studies Association Matthew Flinders following a recent letter sent by Professor Flinders on behalf of the PSA. Professor Flinders initially wrote to HEFCE to ask about their plans for reviewing and assessing the REF 2014 impact case studies in terms of best practice, lesson learning and “what works”.
The response from Professor Atkins on behalf of HEFCE can be read in full below:
Dear Matthew,
Evaluation of impact in REF 2014
Thank you for your letter and interest in our plans for evaluating impact in the Research Excellence Framework (REF). We greatly value input from academic associations as we review and develop the process of research assessment. I have indicated below some of the ways in which the Political Studies Association (PSA) could contribute to this in the coming months.
The HEFCE website sets out information on the programme of activity we are running, in partnership with the other UK higher education funding bodies, to evaluate REF 2014. A central project in this programme is a two-phase evaluation of impact in the REF. The first phase of this project commenced in mid-2013, and focused upon evaluating the process of submission for impact with a sample of twenty institutions. The second phase is focusing on the assessment process, and is due to complete shortly. Phase one completed in summer 2014; the outcomes will be published alongside the phase two report in March 2015. The two-phase evaluation is being conducted by RAND Europe and overseen by a steering group comprising senior representatives from institutions, the research councils, government and users of research.
Additional projects within the evaluation programme include a review of the costs, benefit and burden of REF 2014, sector feedback on the exercise from participating institutions, feedback from the REF panels and a review of multi- and inter-disciplinary research. Further information about these projects is available from our website: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/researchassesment/reddeedback/
In partnership with the UK funding bodies, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust, we have also commissioned work to develop an online database of case studies. This project will include an initial analysis of the 6,975 case studies submitted to REF 2014 and will allow additional analysis and automated text mining of the documents by interested parties.
The range of projects outlined above will be showcased at a REF evidence conference in March 2015. The outcomes from each of the projects will be published on our website following the conference.
As with previous exercises, a future REF exercise will be developed collaboratively with the higher education sector. Following the March conference, we will begin informal dialogue with the sector as we share the key findings from the evidence collected and gather views to inform policy development. We anticipate that this will include our attendance at a wide range of events and conferences of representative organisations and we would be delighted to join the PSA at such an event if applicable. There will be a further opportunity to input into the development of a future exercise through formal consultation later this year.
I hope this information has been helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact my colleague Steven Hill ([email protected]), Head of Research Policy, with any further queries on this issue.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Madeleine Atkins
Chief Executive
