Community Calls

The Hidden REF Community Calls are open, informal spaces for people across the research community to come together and talk about research culture – what’s working, what’s challenging, and what could be done differently.

Each session brings together a mix of perspectives to share experiences, ideas, and practical approaches to recognising the full range of contributions that make research possible.

Next community call

19th May at 11.00-12.00 BST

Recognising hidden contributions: Sharing examples, practice, and possibilities

Register for the next call if you would like to take part. If you want to share something with the community, please submit a community share request.

Join us for the third Hidden REF Community Call – a space to explore hidden contributions, not-traditionally submitted outputs, and the practical challenges of recognising the full range of work that makes research possible.

As we prepare to open this year’s Hidden REF competition (on 26th May), this session will focus on sharing examples, ideas, approaches, and resources that can help build confidence in recognising and talking about not-traditionally submitted outputs in practice. 

As always, this is an open community space. Alongside some prompts, there will be room to discuss anything and everything connected to Hidden REF and research culture.

Community share slot

We’re also inviting members of the community to briefly share practical ideas, approaches, tools, examples or experiences that might help others in recognising and valuing hidden research contributions. A small number of 2-minute slots will be available during the call. If you’d like to share something, please complete the short form by 15th May so we can plan the agenda depending on interest.

To make sure you don’t miss out on future calls, join our mailing list

Previous community calls

24th March 2026

In this call, we brought together 22 attendees to discuss recognising research differently. We introduced our new community share out, which allows anyone to promote their experience and ideas around research assessment and the REF.

To learn about what happened during the session, you can read this blog post.

27th January 2026 

The first ever Hidden REF community call!
The call brought together more than 60 people from across the UK research landscape to talk about shaping a healthy research culture: your experiences, our future.

To learn about what happened during the session, you can read this blog post.