Hidden REF Categories

The problem with recognising all research is that no one knows which research outputs need to be collected to recognise everyone’s contribution.

For the 2021 competition, we started with the non-publication-based categories from the 2021 REF (categories L to V) and then asked the research community to nominate new categories, of which we added category 1-7 below.

For the 2024 competition we took suggestions from discussions at the Festival of Hidden REF and again crowdsourced ideas for new categories from the community, as well as changes to existing categories, adding 4 brand new categories! (8-11)

Further details about the category can be found by clicking on its title in the table below (the entire list is also available as are example submissions).

Nominate a great colleague

This category allowed for nomination of people whose work has been instrumental in the conduct of your research. You may wish to talk to the person you are nominating and allow them to review your nomination to ensure that you have described their work accurately.

Category no.Title
1Hidden Role

Nominate your work

These categories allow the nomination of any work that contributes towards research success, but which is not best represented by traditional research outputs.

CategoryTitle
2Training materials and courses
3Citizen Science
4Research infrastructure
5Community Building
6Grimpact
7Standards
8 NEW!Research teams
9 NEW!Public Engagement
10 NEW!Campaigns
11 NEW!Everything else!
LPhysical artefact
PDevices and Products
MPerformance
FPatent/Published Patent Application
JComposition
KDesign
NResearch report for external body
OConfidential report for external body
GSoftware
HWebsite Content
QDigital or Visual Media
SResearch Datasets and Databases
VTranslation