Men ‘define impact’ as women’s research is left out of REF studies

Women are being “squeezed out” of the Research Excellence Framework’s focus on how research has impacted society, according to an assessment of almost 400 case studies.

Emily Yarrow, a teaching fellow and researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s business school, told Research Professional News that female researchers were underrepresented in impact case studies, which are submitted to the REF to show how a university’s research has affected wider society.

Submissions to the REF demonstrate the impact of research carried out by a department, rather than the impact of an individual’s research. But in a paper assessing 395 impact cases for business and management submitted to REF 2014, Yarrow—along with fellow researchers Julie Davies of the University of Huddersfield’s business school and Jawad Syed at Lahore University of Management Sciences—found that of those with an identifiable lead author, just 25 per cent were led by women.