Author Archives: simonhettrick

We are open for submissions! The more submissions we receive, the more evidence we have to campaign for broadening the research community’s definition of what it means to contribute to research. Good luck!

Research is built on more than publications, but success is still measured primarily by them – as this chart based on data from REF2014 illustrates. This is why we need the Hidden REF: to recognise all research outputs and the people who create them (and, if you’d like to investigate, here is the data).

Research fortnight has picked up on upcoming the launch of the Hidden REF and the publication of our submission categories. Read the article in Research Fortnight.

The Research Excellence Framework’s purpose is to assess world-class research. However, it overlooks the work of many groups who make possible high-quality research submissions. James Baker illustrates this through the case of the Research Software Engineer, without whom much high-quality research would not be possible, but whose contributions do not get counted by the REF. The HiddenContinue reading “How should we celebrate the research excellence obscured by the REF? The case of the Research Software Engineer”

How do you choose which categories are needed to represent all possible research outputs? That’s the problem we’re facing at the Hidden REF. Rather than solve it ourselves, we’ve handed the problem to the research community who have much more knowledge about the range of new categories we’re going to need. In this post, I’m going to take a lookContinue reading “A first look at the new categories”

Our campaign has been picked up in Research Fortnight: “In REF2014, 97 per cent of all research outputs submitted were publications. The percentage has increased steadily with successive Research Assessment Exercises and into the REF. Publications, of course, are fundamental to the conduct of research and to academia’s contract with the public. The problem arisesContinue reading “Hidden REF reveals unsung heroes”

Publications alone do not measure research excellence! We’re running ‘the hidden REF’ as a competition that will celebrate all research outputs and recognise everyone that contributes to the conduct of research. Find out more about us and if you’d like to keep in touch, please follow us on Twitter.