There is insufficient evidence that an international Research Excellence Framework would improve the existing REF process, the British Academy has said.
The British Academy has responded to a Higher Education Funding Council for England survey on the potential to expand the REF quality assessment exercise to other countries. According to the response, published on 1 December, the REF should only be internationalised if it would improve the existing REF process, which the academy says is not the case now. It adds that the “international expansion of the REF would be clearly disadvantageous in numerous scenarios”.
The organisation says that HEFCE should be clearer on explaining how it would expand the REF, what the aims are, as well as to explain the possible disadvantages of the process.
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