REF team warned that assessing research culture is ‘really difficult’

Funding bodies urged to take careful approach now that culture carries more weight

Ahead of the next Research Excellence Framework, the UK’s four funding bodies have been warned that assessing research culture is “really, really difficult”.

In June, Research England outlined the initial decisions taken on the shape of the UK’s next research assessment exercise—which determines the amount of public funding that universities receive—on behalf of the four national funding bodies: Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland.