REF people, culture, and environment pilot submissions detailed

It does happen with funding competitions occasionally – think of the learning gain bit of the last TEF (or, for older readers, the entire of the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning programme).

The organiser throws their hands up in the air and asks, effectively, for people to send in whatever they think is relevant to evidence the issue in question. It can be an effective approach, especially if you are developing criteria and expectations but you can’t be sure quite what providers might have about the place.

The four UK funding councils are piloting the People, Culture, and Environment (PCE) component of the 2029 REF over the front end of this year – and if you were hoping for clues as to what you will need to prepare for the main event you will be slightly disappointed:

The guidance for the PCE assessment in REF 2029 will likely vary significantly from the Pilot guidance presented here.

If you are still catching up, the position on PCE is that it forms some 25 per cent of the total REF marks available, with engagement and impact (E&I) constituting a further 25 per cent, and contribution to knowledge and understanding (CKU) as the remaining half. Response to the decision to increase the weight offered to research environment issues while reducing the importance of assessing published research can be best described as mixed – with some more traditionally-minded academics concerned that it constitutes a reduction in academic rigour.

The revelation that the pilot (if viewed from certain uncharitable angles) will be a free-for-all as regard evidence is unlikely to calm such critical voices. The initial proposal was for consultants (Technopolis and CRAC-Vitae) to develop indicators – the pilot is clearly a means of informing this work though it also stands alone.

If you are already part of the pilot you will know – the names and units of assessment were announced back in the summer, and right now you will be putting the finishing touches to your submission having been party to the rubric since the kick-off meeting in December. Submission is next month, results in the summer, and a report due out in September. Forty providers will be involved, across eight units of assessment.

There is a list of things you might want to submit, across five factors that enable a positive research culture: strategy, responsibility, connectivity, inclusivity, and development. These suggestions include documentary evidence (policies, strategies, and records of involvement in training or academic society memberships) and quantitative indicators (everything from the effectiveness of researcher support, to carbon emissions data, grant application numbers, co-authorship, staff characteristics, and open data reuse). But, as the guidance says:

if participating HEIs feel that their performance in PCE is better contextualised by other indicators then they are afforded the flexibility to include them

In the real thing some of these may be mandatory, others optional – both the pilot panels and the participants will have their views taken into account, though the main REF sub-panels will have the final say. It is likely that some indicators will be more helpful for subject level assessments, others more germane to individual submissions. The caveat that this will not be the final form of your PCE submission is stressed several times – but even outside the pilot the guidance offers a handy checklist of the kind of thing you should probably be collecting anyway. Although, as the team put it:

we do not recommend that these documents are used for decision making outside of the pilot itself

The pilot will produce recommendations that will be published in September 2025 and the final criteria and definitions for PCE will be published winter 2025–26.