The Big Red Button

Actually it was yellow and there were several!  And yes we submitted our REF submission this morning; something of an anti-climax to be honest after three years of preparation and a huge amount of work by a large number of people especially over the last few weeks.  In terms of statistics we have:

  • submitted in eight units, notably for the first time in Psychology as well as in Leisure and Tourism;
  • 33% of eligible academic staff have been returned, up by 10% on RAE-2008 with a growth of 15% in eligible staff over the same period;
  • just over 40% of eligible staff were considered for selection;
  • our biggest submission, just short of 30 FTE, and is Geography/Archaeology;
  • we have submitted 22 Impact Case Studies and prepared many more. 

These numbers and statistics do not reflect the huge amount of work done by our UoA Leaders and their advisors, or the academics who have contributed the outputs to be returned and we salute you all for your work.  But in truth this is not the work of a few but a collective endeavour – academic and non-academic colleagues – a tribute to us all.  Without the selfless work of academics covering teaching while others have focused on research, without others generating RKE income, or supervising PGR students our collective success would not have been possible.  As such it is something that we should all feel proud of since we have all contributed whether returned with outputs or not.  As such we should be proud, whatever the outcome next December, of what we have achieved together.  The blood, sweat and toil is still written large in a few peoples’ mind at the moment; but boy will it be worth it and thank you!