A presentation from the HEFCE conference 2017 on 12 October 2017.

1. Research England & the REF
David Sweeney
Executive Chair Designate, Research England
HEFCE Conference
12 October 2017

2. UK Research and Innovation
What is UK Research and Innovation?
UKRI
Board and
Corporate
functions
MRC
NERC
ESRC
EPSRC
BBSRC
AHRC
Innovate
UK
Research
England
Scottish
Funding
Council
HEFCW
Northern
Ireland
Executive
STFC

3. The vision for UK Research and Innovation
To be
an outstanding research
and 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
UK Research and Innovation

4. UK Research and Innovation
Building on existing strengths
• Research Councils and Innovate
UK
• Dual support and Research
England
• Haldane Principle
• Excellence and rigour
• Global outlook
Image:LibraryofCongress

5. UK Research and Innovation
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

6. UK Research and Innovation
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

7. UK Research and Innovation
Asking fundamental questions
• Host defence mechanisms
• Structure of the cell
• Gravitational waves
• Materials science
• Poverty measurement
• Hokusai

8. UK Research and Innovation
Needs of society
• Hydrology and
meteorology
• Air quality
• Infectious diseases
• Ageing
• Security
• Economy

9. UK Research and Innovation
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

10. UK Research and Innovation
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

11. UK Research and Innovation
Conduct of research
Issues
• Reproducibility
• Openness
• Communication of research and
innovation
• Careers
• Diversity
• Right incentives
Image:AcademyofMedicalSciences

12. 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.
UK Research and Innovation
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.

13. 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.
UK Research and Innovation
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.

14. • 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
UK Research and Innovation
Research England within UKRI
Main activities:

15. 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
UK Research and Innovation
Different elements:

16. 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
UK Research and Innovation
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:

17. 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

18. Implementing the Stern Review
Key decisions on:
• Deepening and broadening impact.
• Interdisciplinary research.
• Piloting assessment at the level of the institution.

19. Implementing the Stern Review
Further discussion on:
• Approach to submitting all staff.
• Non-portability of outputs.

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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.

27. 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

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. Timetable
Autumn 2017
Invite nominations for panel members
Further 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