REF staff circumstances rules criticised

Guidance for 2021 assessment described as ‘complex and difficult to apply’

New rules from Research England that allow academics with challenging circumstances to submit fewer outputs in the next iteration of the Research Excellence Framework have come under fire.

Martin Paul Eve, a professor of literature, technology and publishing at Birkbeck College, who suffers from vasculitis, inflammation of blood vessels, described the process of declaring circumstances as “incredibly invasive”.