The next REF will run in 2028, assessing the period of research impact between 2021 to 2027, a long lead time in which to position the creative arts in the best light. Despite an upswing in the number of 18-year-olds, creative arts institutions in the UK are witnessing a 3-5% contraction in student population together with a proportional increase in casualised contracts, which might well result in a reduction of research volume and perhaps less cohesion in research groups. REF 2028 will have an expanded definition of research excellence with three elements retained from REF 2014 and REF 2021 but renamed, their content adjusted, and their weightings rebalanced to reflect a new emphasis going forward, namely;
People, culture, and environment (25% weighting) replaces the environment element and will be expanded to include research culture. This could benefit the creative arts disciplines which is now in gear regarding definitions & articulation of practice-through-research / research-through-practice [and all the variant definitions]. Research culture will seek a finer reading of the entire eco-system in any creative arts environment, through early career seedlings to fully fledged and mature research institutes & centres. As has happened in Australia in recent years, cross disciplinary practices are growing along with emerging practices utilising new technologies such as VR/AR and AI, an area where the creative arts can help define research parameters beyond the applied use of such technologies.
Contribution to knowledge and understanding (50% weighting) replaces the outputs element. It will largely be based on assessment of research outputs but will also include evidence of broader contributions to the advancement of the discipline. Outputs were invariably the stronger component of many arts submissions in REF, so this may prove to be contentious for the creative arts and where the elephant in the measurement room will inevitably rear its large and ugly head once again.
How we prove influence and contribution to new knowledge has always been an awkward add-on in ERA through our contextual statements, which over time have become more formularised than informative, so yet again the tool of measurement that rarely measures what we do, will define how we present our creative research within a scientific realm that has yet to acknowledge the arts as being fundamentally different in its aims, its reach, and its contribution to society.
Engagement and impact (25% weighting) replaces the impact element. It is similar to the impact element of REF 2014 and will consist of impact case studies and an accompanying statement. Societal, cultural, and economic Impact are where the creative arts show real value, values that are generally understood by assessors from all disciplines. Engagement – civic, societal, and community – does also help broaden the reach of staff research, so that may well be a plus for those HEIs with strong roots into towns, communities, and a profound sense of belonging and making a difference. ERA has yet to develop a gauge capable of measuring this institutional behaviour, though we know it certainly exists and often in layered strength.
Interestingly, REF 2028 will move further away from the assessment of individuals. There will be a new approach to determining research volume, where the number of staff with significant responsibility for research is drawn directly from the HESA staff record. The volume measure will be based on the average number of staff over a number of years. This is a major shift for creative research which traditionally has been individually driven both in the UK and in Australia. This is probably part of the HEI agenda of trying to make sure that researchers share more, are supported more, and combine their efforts given that so much innovation happens across disciplines.
Finally, In REF 2028 there will be no minimum or maximum number of outputs contributed by an individual. This is intended to increase inclusivity of the assessment and provide an environment which is supportive of researchers establishing themselves or moving into academia. Much like the New Zealand PBRF model this gives assessors a massive load which adds to the time and cost of running the system. On this note, the previous REF (2021) cost £471 million (AU $900 million) to run, twice the cost of the previous REF, which works out at £3 million (AU $5.75 million) for each university in the UK.
The problems associated with the ever-increasing time and cost of running such an exercise are clearly influencing its re-design now more than ever. While the focus on demonstrable outcomes may well result in a downsizing of the work involved for institutions and assessors, concerns have been expressed that efforts to “codify culture” might disincentivise institutions to support creative research that does not score highly in the new metrics.
There is even talk of developing machine algorithms as a form of citation measurement, a bleak and human-free future, but ironically one that might ultimately strengthen the path of peer reviewing for those disciplines that still value and respect human judgement.
Robert Insall, professor of mathematical and computational biology at the University of Glasgow comments, “Research culture is very easy to misrepresent – and therefore game – so I fear we’ll see a lot of dissembling and distortion”. This of course can lead to an unhealthy competition between institutions, or what Jeremy Farrar, the former director of the Wellcome Trust referred to in 2019 when he spoke of “destructive hyper-competition, toxic power dynamics and poor leadership behaviour”. Institutional differences along with inter-institutional collaboration is what makes a diverse and energetic research culture, something that the creative arts in Australia have always lived by. So, we must learn from the REF rather than copy it. Our context is different, and we need to acknowledge the virtues of a good ERA sleep, namely increased productivity, smarter decision-making, clearer thinking and above all, a stronger heart.
References
HEPI. The past, present and future of research assessment. 1 September 2022
Munafo, Marcus. Don’t Let the REF Tail Wag the Academic Dog. Times Higher Education 6th May 2022.
Research Excellence Framework 2028: Initial Decisions and Issues for Further Consultation.
REF 2028: All You Need to Know about Submissions and Assessment.
Thrift, Nigel. REF2028: Outputs Matter. HEPI number Policy Vote 50. 2 November 2023
Paul Gough is Professor and Vice Chancellor of the Arts University Bournemouth UK. Paul’s research interests lie in the processes and iconography of commemoration, the visual culture of theGreat War, and the representation of peace and conflict in the 20th/21st century. As a painter, Paul has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, and am represented in the permanentcollection of the Imperial War Museum, London, the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, theNational War Memorial, New Zealand. My most recent exhibitions have been in Melbourne,London, and Wellington, New Zealand.
Clive Barstow is Professor of Art at Edith Cowan University Perth Western Australia.Clive is a practicing artist and writer. His exhibition profile includes forty years of international exhibitions, artist residencies and publications in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. His work is held in a number of collections, including the Musse National d’Art Modern Pompidou Centre Paris and the British Council USA. In 2019 Clive was awarded the lifelong fellowship award by the Australian Council for University Art & Design Schools, for his outstanding contribution to art and design education in Australia.