Why do we need the Hidden REF?
If we don’t recognise everyone involved in research, we limit our ability to conduct research.
The Hidden REF campaigns for recognition of all the people and outputs that make research possible. We began as a national competition in 2020, celebrating contributions that are overlooked by traditional research assessment. Since then, we’ve grown into a national campaign working to change how research is recognised, rewarded and supported.
Our focus is on two areas: not-traditionally submitted outputs (NTOs), such as software, datasets, performances and other contributions beyond publications; and Hidden Roles, the people whose expertise is essential to research but whose contributions often go unrecognised.
You can learn about the people behind the Hidden REF on our committee page.
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) has enormous influence over research culture in the UK. Although it has long encouraged universities to submit a wide variety of research outputs, institutions overwhelmingly favour journal articles, conference papers and books.
In REF 2021, approximately 98% of submitted outputs were publications. This compares with 97% in REF 2014. This imbalance is not the result of REF rules. Universities are concerned that not traditionally submitted outputs may not be assessed competitively, creating a powerful incentive to continue submitting only traditional publications. The result is a research system that rewards only a fraction of the contributions on which it depends.
Why does this matter?
Modern research depends on an extraordinary range of outputs, skills and expertise. Software, datasets, methods, technical infrastructure and many other contributions are fundamental to the reliability, reproducibility and – importantly – the effectiveness of research. Yet when these contributions are overlooked, there is less incentive to invest in developing and sustaining them.
The same problem affects the people who create and support these outputs. Research software engineers, technicians, librarians, research managers and many others make essential contributions to research, but their work is often invisible in traditional measures of research success.
This lack of recognition undermines career development, recruitment and retention, making it harder for research institutions to attract and sustain the expertise they need.
Recognising all contributions to research isn’t simply a matter of fairness. It’s essential to improving research itself.
What is the Hidden REF doing?
We work with the research community to demonstrate the value of overlooked contributions and encourage changes in research assessment and institutional practice. Our activities include:
- The Hidden REF Competition, celebrating research outputs and people who might otherwise go unrecognised.
- NTO workshops, helping researchers and institutions understand how to describe and assess a wider range of research outputs.
- Research and policy engagement, gathering evidence, developing guidance and working to improve research assessment.
- Community activities, bringing together people from across the research sector to share experiences, develop ideas and campaign for change.
Through these activities, we aim to give universities and research assessors greater confidence in recognising the full diversity of research contributions.
Our ambition extends beyond changing what universities submit to the REF. We want institutions to recognise and reward the full range of contributions that make research possible, through their policies, career structures, investment decisions and approaches to research assessment.
There is considerable appetite for change across the sector, but institutions are cautious about decisions that might affect their REF performance and funding. The Hidden REF is overcoming this barrier by demonstrating that broader recognition can help institutions become more effective at conducting research.
What is our relationship with the REF?
The Hidden REF is an independent, community-focused project. We are funded by Research England (via a bid called Embedding Trust in Evaluation or E-TIE), but have no direct role in developing REF policy.
We support the principle of the REF and believe that assessing research excellence is an important part of the research community’s contract with the public, whose taxes ultimately fund research.
We conduct our work openly and share what we learn in the hope of helping the sector collectively develop a more effective and equitable system of research assessment. We liaise with Research England, REF2029 and the Research Diversity Advisory Panel (RDAP).