REF 2021 and Research England - David Sweeney

Research England & the REF

David Sweeney

Executive Chair Designate, Research England

HEFCE Conference

12 October 2017

UK Research and Innovation

What is UK Research and Innovation?

UKRI

Board and

Corporate

functions

MRC

NERC

ESRCEPSRC

BBSRC

AHRC

Innovate

UK

Research

England

Scottish

Funding

Council

HEFCW

Northern

Ireland

ExecutiveSTFC

The vision for UK Research and Innovation

To bean outstanding researchand innovation agency

Knowledge

Push the frontiers of human knowledge

Economy

Deliver economic impact and create better jobs

Society

Create social impact by supporting our society to

become stronger and healthier



Building on existing strengths

• Research Councils and Innovate UK

• Dual support and Research England

• Haldane Principle

• Excellence and rigour

• Global outlook Image: Lib

rary

of

Congre

ss


Opportunities

• Increased funding:

• £4.7 billion additional funding to 2021

• Strong commitment to science and research

• Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund

• Newton Fund

• Global Challenges Research Fund


Tackling important problems

• Fundamental questions

• Needs of society – working with government

• Advancing the UK economy

• Research and innovation as a key element of UK’s place in the world


Asking fundamental questions

• Host defence mechanisms

• Structure of the cell

• Gravitational waves

• Materials science

• Poverty measurement

• Hokusai


Needs of society

• Hydrology and meteorology

• Air quality

• Infectious diseases

• Ageing

• Security

• Economy


Advancing the UK economy

Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund

• First wave of challenges includes:

• Batteries

• Pharmaceutical advanced manufacturing technologies

• Robotics in hazardous environments

• Second wave announced later this year


The UK’s place in the world

Global Challenges Research Fund

• Focus areas:

• Equitable access to sustainable development

• Sustainable economies and societies

• Human rights, good governance and social justice

Global research: e.g. ALMA


Conduct of research

Issues

• Reproducibility

• Openness

• Communication of research and innovation

• Careers

• Diversity

• Right incentives

Image: A

cadem

y o

f M

edic

al S

cie

nces

Research England’s role

Research England will create and sustain the conditions for a healthy and dynamic research and knowledge exchange system in English higher education institutions.


It will have four main roles:• Funding for HEIs to deliver research and KE, unlocking potential, generating impact,

meeting national priorities and global challenges• System intelligence and analytics: gathering evidence of impact of current and future

R+KE policy on English university sector, including on effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability

• Engagement with HEIs: understanding HEI strategy, capability and capacity, delivering policy to support continuous improvement and behaviour change

• Close working with devolved administrations on UK-wide activity to help UKRI deliver national priorities and become experts on UK HE system.

Research England within UKRI

Like the other eight councils, Research England will have devolved budgets and responsibilities within UKRI that relate to its funding and policies for English HEIs.


There are significant opportunities of including RE within UKRI. RE will:

• Take a HEI view that complements the disciplinary focus of RCs and business focus of Innovate UK

• Have a distinctive England-only role that will need to link with devolved administrations to help UKRI develop a UK-wide focus on HEI issues

• Provide underpinning funding for HEIs that complements project focus of research councils and demand-side innovation focus of Innovate UK

• Deliver capital funding that supports new partnerships between universities and business, including via RPIF

• Support high-performance knowledge exchange through capacity and capability development, including working with OfS on HEIF.

• QR (Quality-Related) Research Funding – Unhypothecated Block Grant

• Research Excellence Framework to inform QR (and other purposes)

• HEIF – Higher Education Innovation Fund (with Education side of HEFCE)

• HE-BCI statistics (Higher Education Business & Community Interactions –longitudual data set

• UKRPIF – UK Research Partnership Investment Fund – Institutional Research Activity, double-match funded from private sources. Capital

• Research Capital Funding by formula

• Exploring HEIF Projects

• Connecting Capability Fund


Research England within UKRI

Main activities:

What’s changed

•New QR funding from GCRF and Newton –• Justify ODA spend – monitoring regime similar to HEIF

• Extend monitoring regime to strengthen case for dual funding

•Additional HEIF Funding to support Industrial Strategy• Part baseline increase based on performance, part single allocation

• Exploring Project Funding

•Connecting Capability Fund• Single allocation then competitive process


Different elements:

UKRI and OfS joint working

Skills capability and progression

Knowledge exchange

Infrastructure funding

Financial sustainability and efficiency of the HE system and providers

Accountability and assurance

Evidence gathering and system intelligence

TEF and REF


The Government has published a fact sheet, outlining nine areas of joint working between UKRI and OfS, and where it is expected that Research England will play a significant coordination role:

Impact of Lord Stern’s recommendations

Key principles:

• Lower burden

• Less game-playing

• Less personalisation, more institutionally focused

• Recognition for investment

• Making space for long-term research

• More rounded view of research activity

• Interdisciplinary emphasis

• Broaden impact

Implementing the Stern Review

Key decisions on:

• Deepening and broadening impact.

• Interdisciplinary research.

• Piloting assessment at the level of the institution.

Implementing the Stern Review

Further discussion on:

• Approach to submitting all staff.

• Non-portability of outputs.

Interdisciplinary research

• At least one appointed member on each sub-panel to oversee and participate in the assessment of interdisciplinary research

• Interdisciplinary identifier for outputs in submission system

• Discrete section in environment template for interdisciplinary research

Impact – definitions and guidance

• UK funding bodies will work with Research Councils to align definitions of ‘academic’ and ‘wider’ impact

• Additional guidance on:• Criteria of ‘reach and significance’

• Impact arising from public engagement

• Impact on teaching will be widened to include impact within, as well as beyond, the submitting institution

Institutional Level Assessment -environment

• Institutional-level information will be included in the UOA-level environment template and will be assessed by the relevant sub-panel in REF 2021.

• Pilot of the standalone assessment of the institutional-level environment will draw on this submitted information.

• Outcomes from the separate pilot exercise will not be included in REF 2021.

Institutional Level Assessment -impact

• Institutional-level impact case studies will not be included in REF 2021.

• Pilot of assessment of institutional-level impact case studies will instead inform decisions about the most appropriate way to give recognition and reward to institutions for this activity in future exercises.

Research staff

• From the consultation responses:

• Broad support for Stern recommendation to include ‘all staff with significant responsibility to carry out research’.

• Proposal to use contract status alone not supported.

• Broad support for limiting to independent researchers.

• Strong concerns about use of cost centres to allocate to UOAs.

• Support for weakening link between staff and submitted outputs.

• Concern to consider E&D issues carefully.

Defining the staff pool

• Submission options

• 100 per cent submission

• UOA level

• Avoiding additional burden

• Institutional identification of staff in scope

• Those required to carry out research – auditable documentation where there is no expectation of this (e.g. career pathway or workload model)

• Require agreement between institution and staff

• Process set out in Codes of Practice

Defining the staff pool

Views sought on:

• Any additional guidance that would be necessary to enable institutions to develop processes for identifying staff (e.g. key attributes).

• Further characteristics of independent researchers, common across the main panels, to refine the generic definition.

Non-portability

• Stern aim to address

• Distortion to investment incentives

• Effects on staff recruitment and retention

• From the consultation responses, concern about:

• effects of proposal

• timing in cycle

• practical issues of implementation

Non-portability

• Simplified model • outputs eligible for return by the originating institution as well as

by the newly employing institution.

• Hybrid approach• introduce non-portability rule after set date, after which a

limited number of outputs would transfer with staff, with eligibility otherwise linked to the originating institution.

Non-portability

Views sought on:

• Which of these options is preferable, and the rationale for this preference.

• Key challenges relating to implementation that need to be taken into account in developing the approach.

Timetable

Autumn 2017Invite nominations for panel membersFurther decisions on the arrangements for submitting staff and outputs

Winter 2017-18 Appoint panels

Spring 2018 Panels meet to develop criteria

Summer to Autumn 2018 Publish draft guidance, and consultation on panel criteria

Winter 2018-19 Publish final guidance and criteria

2019 Complete preparation of submission systems

2020 Submission phase

2021 Assessment phase