What we heard at the first Hidden REF community call
January 30, 2026Hidden REF Competition 2026 – Announcement
March 5, 2026
The latest REF townhall took place on the 22 January and focussed on the CKU (Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding). Key headline: CKU now carries 55% of the overall submission, confirmed in the December update, reinforcing that “contribution to knowledge and understanding” is still the core of the REF submission. The REF team repeatedly framed decisions as a three-way balancing act: robust assessment, culture impact, and proportionate burden.
For Hidden REF, there were two important issues. First, the eligible employment relationship was reiterated as intentionally profession-agnostic: research can be enabled by technicians, software and data professionals, research managers, impact staff and more. Second, the policy tweaks aim to make this diversity of outputs less “brave” and more routine: decoupling continues, outputs can move across UOAs, and interdisciplinary work is supported via multi-UOA submission and cross-referral (with audit risk noted but not intended as deterrence).
December changes centred on practicality and guardrails: a recommended maximum of five outputs per substantive link (explained through a new statement of representation now housed in SPRE, not CKU), a reserve pool rather than 1:1 reserves, and double-weighting only.
The refinement of non-portability, including a new long-form/extended-process exception (5-year window, flagged, 100-word justification, no reserve). The subtext: the system is trying to recognise messier research realities, while still keeping a tight hand on evidencing and audit.
The CKU Townhall is available on Youtube. The next Townhall takes place on 4th February at 11-12. Visit the REF website for the joining link.
