The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a periodic UK-wide exercise conducted by Research England on behalf of the Higher Education funding bodies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The last REF was conducted in 2021, and Imperial was ranked top in the UK for the quality of its research, as evidence by its outputs, environment and impact.
Since 2022, Imperial has received between £50-60m per year from Research England as a direct result of our performance in REF 2021. This money, known as QR (quality related) funding is used to underpin our capability to do research and to fund initiatives that contribute to the development of individual and collective research capability. More details can be found on our QR Funding Pages . REF results also make an important contribution to our reputation for research excellence, a key factor in our ability to attract the highest quality staff and students from the UK and internationally.
REF 2029 will assess the quality of research in 34 broad subject areas called Units of Assessment (UoA's), Imperial submits to eleven UoAs across Main Panels A, B and C. The full list of UoA's can be found here. The REF is focused on three aspects of research:
Sections
Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding.
Most commonly, for the disciplines at Imperial, this means research papers in peer reviewed journals. Examples of other types of output that may be relevant include software, code, datasets and or artefacts.
Strategy, People and Research Environment.
The REF assesses how Imperial creates an environment that cultivates research excellence. This includes physical, ‘people’ and financial factors. Assesing how we invest to maintain and improve our research environment.
Engagement and Impact (E&I).
The REF measures the real-world impact of our research by examining a number of case studies in which we highlight factors such as the economic, societal and technological advancements as a result of the research that we have undertaken.