At a briefing on the Queen’s Lawn at Imperial College HEFCE announced the interim results of the pilot REF process which 22 institutions (not us) have been involved in. It seems that HEFCE have now decided that expert panels will continue to be the main way in which block research funding will be allocated, though citation counts may still be used by these peer review panels to help assess quality – particularly in STEM subjects. It is possible that bibliometric data will be used by the panels to help assess each paper submitted. Dr Graeme Rosenberg of HEFCE indicate that citation data from both Web of Science and Scopus will be used – and it is likely that HEFCE will help make WOS and Scopus more widely available to institutions.
The next assessment period will cover 2008-2012 and may require researchers to submit their best 3 papers for assessment. The figure of 3 is not finalised and a final report will be available at the end of the summer. More on the REF on the HEFCE website and in the Times Higher
