by Tom Addison, Policy and Public Affairs Manager
Through The Society’s policy work in areas such as ageing, the health impacts of climate change and supporting the safe and effective use of artificial intelligence tools within health, physiologists are making significant contributions to how research funding bodies approach tackling the key scientific challenges of our generation.
In order to do this, The Society must advocate for a research environment that monitors, recognises and rewards the outputs related to physiologists’ research.
To this end, The Society has also developed projects which have explored the challenges facing physiologists in these areas and sought to collaborate with other learned societies and national academies to collaborate on shared areas of interest.
In November 2021, The Physiological Society published The Future of Interdisciplinary Research Beyond REF 2021, which brought together a Steering Group comprised of representatives from across the research landscape, to make recommendations on how UKRI can increase the quantity of interdisciplinary research and address current barriers within the research ecosystem. The project, chaired by former President Professor David Eisner, examined long-standing concerns about the assessment of interdisciplinary research – in particular, the potential for research assessment to under-recognise and undervalue interdisciplinary research.
Early changes to REF 2028
Following the publication of the report in January 2021 and The Society’s engagement with Research England on behalf of the four national higher education funding councils, Research England published Research Excellence Framework 2028: initial decisions and issues for further consultation (known as its Initial Decisions report). The Initial Decisions report celebrates interdisciplinary research, particularly for its growing importance in challenge-led and mission-driven research, and included recommendations for the next REF and relevant to wider issues affecting IDR, such as academic publishing.
Taken in concert with the reports published by the Interdisciplinary Research Advisory Panel (IDAP), reflecting on the assessment of IDR in REF 2021, and the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP), which draws on the experience of REF 2021 to outline possible future directions for research assessment, it is clear that a number of The Society’s key recommendations have been acted on by Research England.
Research England have recognised, for example, that there is a need to allow outputs from individuals to be returned to multiple units of assessment (UoAs) and to identify and reward interdisciplinary research through the use of institutional and disciplinary level statements. To a lesser extent, Research England have also sought to act on The Society’s recommendation that outputs include an option for additional narrative to explain the interdisciplinary context of research outputs.
The adoption of these recommendations demonstrates how The Society’s policy engagement can have a direct influence on creating a reward and recognition landscape for researchers which is more qualitative in its criteria, responding to members’ concerns that the REF was becoming too quantitative, bureaucratic and data driven.
Future Society engagement on REF 2028
That is not to say however, that there are not more opportunities for engagement before the criteria for the next REF is finalised. Interdisciplinary is just one part of The Society’s engagement on this knotty policy issue. As such, The Society is building on our assessment of the Initial Decisions document from an interdisciplinary perspective to respond to other areas of the REF process on which Research England are seeking input.
With this in mind, The Society is hosting a 90-minute roundtable on Wednesday 20 September, chaired by the Chair of our Policy Committee, Professor Mike Tipton, for members to give us their input into the following areas highlighted by Research England:
- Interdisciplinary research
- Assessment structure
- Units of Assessment
- Co-authorship
- Case studies
Getting involved
As a result of this workshop, The Society policy team will develop a consultation response which will be submitted to Research England. The deadline for submission is Monday 4 October.
To find out more and join the online discussion about REF 2028, register for the roundtable via https://www.physoc.org/events/ref-2028-enhancing-the-recognition-of-physiology-in-the-next-research-assessment-exercise/
For more information about the consultation process and questions, please visit https://engagementhub.ukri.org/re-research-policy/ref2028-for-further-consultation/
The Society’s analysis of Research England’s response to our 2021 report in the Initial Decisions document will soon be available to read at https://www.physoc.org/policy/research-landscape-and-funding/