REF May Be Delayed By One Year

An article in this week's THS claims that implementation of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the successor to the RAE, is to be delayed by a year to allow a comprehensive pilot to be run. HEFCE originally intended to introduce the new system for assessing science subjects, through the use of metrics, in 2009, following a pilot this year alongside RAE2008. HEFCE seem to have responded to the criticism, in numerous responses to the consultation earlier this year, that the timetable was too tight.

The system was to be phased in between 2010 and 2014, with the peer-review system for assessment of non-science subjects to begin in 2013.

A final decision had not been made when the THS went to press.

Link to original article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, 10 April 2008