What’s going on in the UK: 2-15 November

This week: REF 2028, research integrity, artificial intelligence and more

REF 2028

Planned reforms of the Research Excellence Framework risk devaluing its central purpose, a former vice-chancellor has warned. Nigel Thrift, who led the University of Warwick from 2006 until 2016, argues in a Higher Education Policy Institute paper that changes proposed for REF 2028—including a cut in the percentage of the exercise given over to qualitative assessment of research outputs via peer review—could render the exercise less focused and therefore less effective when used as part of quality-related funding allocations. “It can seem like those reinventing the REF failed to stand back and think about the impact of ‘contributions to knowledge and understanding’—surely the central mission of university research—taking up so little of an exercise supposedly devoted to judging the quality of research in UK universities,” Thrift said.