REF 2021: Leaders say increased impact weighting ‘justified’

How is the impact measure objective and fair if it largely rests on an element of chance in some disciplines and also on the greater voice some institutions have due to their history and brand. For example, 54% of Surrey Law School's research outputs (actual research) were rated 4*, yet Oxford University’s Law Faculty had only 35% of its research outputs rated 4*, yet Surrey gets an overall rank of 43 for law, while Oxford ranked 29 places higher at 14th place. Notwithstanding Surrey Law was ranked 6th on its actual percentage of 4* research produced, its lack of influence and the lack of invitations to give evidence in parliament meant a good portion of its higher quality research was ignored by lawmakers. While Oxford had greater impact with largely 3* and 2* research outputs. Impact should be reduced to 10% for the next REF and environment to reduced to 5%. Big old brands will always outcompete smaller institutions on environment due to their very large PhD programmes. It is best to focus on the “actual” research produced rather than impact especially for subjects such as law where impact is contingent on an issue arising in society and upon the lawmakers deciding it needs reforming and then upon the chance of being the one that gets listened to.