Million Plus

As part of the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP), the four funding bodies (Research England, Scottish Funding Council, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland) have sought views on the design of the UK’s future research assessment system.

A future exercise should be constructed so it does not penalise universities with an emerging and developing research environment. Smaller and/or modern universities play a vital role in the UK research eco-system, and the introduction of any further measures which disproportionately only rewards those institutions operating at scale should be avoided.

A future exercise should be constructed to minimise as far as possible the negative impact of the exercise on research culture and research careers. It should be mindful to allow for recognition/measurement of ‘quality’ research in different forms.

A future exercise should be constructed so as to support collaboration between HEIs, rather than drive competition between them. MillionPlus advocates that the positive benefits in this regard brought by the portability rules introduced for REF 2021 should be maintained for the next exercise.

Download Future Research Assessment Programme consultation response »