REF 2028: Funders seek partner to test environment assessment

Commercial partner sought to develop “quantitative and qualitative indicators of research culture”

The UK’s higher education funding bodies are seeking a commercial partner to develop and test approaches for assessing research culture and environment in the next iteration of the Research Excellence Framework.

Earlier in the summer, the four funding bodies—Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland—announced a number of early decisions that had been taken on the shape of REF 2028, which determines how much public funding universities receive.