The long-time Director (Research, Education and Knowledge Exchange) at HEFCE will now be taking on the critical role of Executive Chair at Research England within UKRI. Sweeney is the master of all things QR funding and REF, and has faced the not-insubstantial task this past year of turning the reforms recommended in the Stern Review into a plan of action for REF 2021.
Few others better understand the politics that accompany the REF and the tussles for income and prestige that it all creates. A former Vice Principal at Royal Holloway, he made a seamless transition to HEFCE in 2008 to implement the first REF. Sweeney has subsequently led the development of the ‘impact agenda’ in REF which, though controversial at first, now feels well established in the culture of research assessment. His new post at UKRI will give him even greater seniority in the new research hierarchy, and with more cash potentially on offer through QR as the result of the government’s Industrial Strategy, Sweeney will perform a pivotal role alongside new boss Mark Walport, stewarding universities’ research activities through testing times of change