The 2021 iteration of the Research Excellence Framework began to feel much more real this year. We’ve seen a blizzard of consultations and documentation, setting out more rigidly the constraints and challenges of a very different system. It’s the biggest set of changes in research assessment since 1994 – taking the best points from the Stern review. Whether it fully addresses game playing or just changes the rules of the game remains to be seen. But more generally, we’ve seen the rise of a competent and capable new funder in the form of Research England.
With all of the convulsions and hand-wringing that has accompanied the painful birth of the OfS, it’s been easy to forget the myriad issues that their research counterpart has dealt with. Concerns about the Haldane Principle, a dilution of influence, and the near-inevitable flux of a new body joining another new body have all been addressed. Preparations for the Knowledge Exchange Framework are proceeding as sensibly as such a thing can, other funding allocations are continuing and expanding.
We never really understood the rationale for separating the research and teaching arms of HEFCE. But the early months of Research England suggests that it will be greatly to the sector’s benefit.