What is a high-quality research environment? Evidence from the UK’s research excellence framework

Author:

Inglis Matthew1ORCID,Gadd Elizabeth2,Stokoe Elizabeth3

Affiliation:

1. Centre for Mathematical Cognition, Loughborough University , Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom

2. Research & Innovation Office, Loughborough University , Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom

3. Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, The London School of Economics and Political Science , London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom

Abstract

Abstract As part of the UK university sector’s performance-related research funding model, the ‘REF’ (Research Excellence Framework), each discipline-derived ‘Unit of Assessment’ must submit a statement to provide information about their environment, culture, and strategy for enabling research and impact. Our aim in this paper is to identify the topics on which these statements focus, and how topic variation predicts funding-relevant research environment quality profiles. Using latent Dirichlet allocation topic modelling, we analysed all 1888 disciplinary ‘unit-level’ environment statements from REF2021. Our model identified eight topics which collectively predicted a surprisingly large proportion—58.9%—of the variance in units’ environment scores, indicating that the way in which statements were written contributed substantially to the perceived quality of a unit’s research environment. Assessing research environments will increase in importance in the next REF exercise and the insights found through our analysis may support reflection and discussion about what it means to have a high-quality research environment.

Funder

Research England

Centre for Mathematical Cognition

Economic and Social Research Council

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Reference43 articles.

1. The Evolution of the UK’s Research Assessment Exercise: publications, Performance and Perceptions;Bence;Journal of Educational Administration and History,2005

2. Latent Dirichlet Allocation;Blei;The Journal of Machine Learning Research,2003

3. Everything for Sale? The Marketisation of UK Higher Education

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