Submission and review process

Eligibility

Submitters or nominees should be based in the UK or have a formal affiliation with a UK-based institution. The institution does not need to be returnable to the REF.

Panel selection and guidance

Our reviewers will be issued with reviewing guidance and a code of conduct to ensure that the peer review process will be ethical, fair, non-discriminatory, and conducted in a spirit of support for the submissions.

Evaluation panels will be created to balance the workload based on the expected number of submissions in each category, and the ability of a single panel to assess submissions from the categories that have been grouped together.  This may mean that a number of categories will be evaluated within a single panel.

Panel members will be recruited from national and international experts in evaluation, and in the particular categories.  If you would like to be considered as a panel member please contact us at info@hidden-ref.org. The composition of panels will remain the responsibility of the Hidden REF Committee.  Special attention will be paid to ensure an even number of people, gender- and race-balance on each panel.  Consensus will be reached through deliberation, rather than voting. There will be potential for additional assessors for specific categories which receive large numbers of submissions.

A Hidden REF committee member will be assigned as Panel Advisor to each panel to manage suggestions for composition.  Panel membership details will be added here in due course.

The same criteria for assessment will be applied across all panels with the aim of celebrating and highlighting the diversity of UK research.  Criteria are evolving constructs that will be reviewed and adjusted after every Hidden REF exercise in preparation for the next event.

The best example or examples from each panel will be chosen as the winner. The panel has the discretion to award Highly Commended to submissions as they see fit. 

Principles of the Hidden REF

  1. To include everyone and everything and leave nothing behind (visibility)
  2. To assess the contribution across  the diversity, richness, and variety of UK research (significance)

All submissions will be celebrated and highlighted as examples of the diversity of the UK research base that is overlooked by traditional research assessment and will be published on the Hidden REF website to raise awareness.

Originality, significance and rigour

Outputs (but not Hidden Roles) will be judged against originality, rigour and significance in line with the assessment expected to be conducted by the REF2029. Since the REF 2029 guidance is not yet available, we will use the definitions of these concepts from the 2021 REF:

  • Originality: the extent to which the output introduces a new way of thinking about a subject, or is distinctive or transformative compared with previous work in an academic field
  • Significance: the extent to which the work has exerted, or is likely to exert, an influence on an academic field or practical applications
  • Rigour: the extent to which the purpose of the work is clearly articulated, an appropriate methodology for the research area has been adopted, and compelling evidence presented to show that the purpose has been achieved

These definitions are open to interpretation and the concepts might not apply equally to all output categories – but this is exactly the case with submissions to the actual REF! We are collecting this information specifically to help start a conversation about what changes are needed to the REF guidance to make it more suitable for not-traditionally submitted outputs. We also hope that giving people a chance to practice writing about these concepts for not-traditionally submitted outputs will help them prepare for the actual REF.

Publication and licensing of submissions

Submissions and reviews will be made publicly available at the latest once the award process has been completed. To make this available for future research, all contributions will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. 

Data processing notice

This data processing notice tells you about the information we collect from you in order to process your HiddenREF submission. In collecting this information, the University of Southampton is acting as a data controller and, by law, we are required to provide you with information about us, about why and how we use your data, and about the rights you have over your data. To find out more about the University of Southampton’s Data Protection policies, or to report a data breach, please visit: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/about/governance/freedom-of-information.page 

We use your information under the legal basis of consent. By submitting your name and email address through the submission form, you consent for your details to be stored and processed. We will need to store and process your name and email address to manage the HiddenREF submission process and to keep you informed of the progress of your submission. We also collect some personal information (like the address of your computer) through the use of website cookies.

We will retain your personal information for a period of one year after the publishing of the HiddenREF submissions, after which time it is deleted. We do not forward this information to third parties.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@hidden-ref.org.