‘Deeply concerning’: Researchers slam ‘wasteful’ REF data deletion

Research England cites legal reasons for deleting scores given to individual outputs in 2021 exercise

Researchers have expressed deep concern over the deletion of scores awarded to individual outputs under the 2021 Research Excellence Framework exercise, calling the approach “anachronistic”.

“Without this data, we have hampered our ability to make evidence-based decisions concerning the policy of the next REF,” said Chris Chambers, a cognitive neuroscientist and metascientist at Cardiff University.