Research Excellence Framework (REF)

REF Impact

The impact of a UOA’s research, is a new area of assessment and counts for 20% of the overall quality rating. The Impact (REF3) section consists of each UOA’s:

• Impact template (REF3a): a narrative describing the UOA’s approach, during the assessment period, to enabling impact from its research.
• Impact case studies (REF3b): narratives describing specific impacts that occurred during the assessment period and that were underpinned by excellent research undertaken in the submitted unit. A minimum of 2 case studies will be required per UOA, but the total will be based on the total FTE of staff submitted to REF for that unit.

Impact is defined as: an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia.

Criteria and definitions of starred levels

The criteria for assessing impacts are ‘reach’ and ‘significance’:

• In assessing the timpact described within a case study, the panel will form an overall view about its 'reach and significance' taken as a whole, rather than assess 'reach and significance' separately.

• In assessing the impact template (REF3a) the panel will consider the extent to which the unit’s approach described in the template is conducive to achieving impacts of ‘reach and significance’.

The criteria for assessing the quality of impact is based on starred ratings of 1*-4* and unclassified.
The interpretation of the generic quality, as defined in Annex A of the Guidance on Submission with addendum (PDF, 940 KB), is Panel specific and can be found in each Panel's Section B3 in the Panel Criteria and Working Methods (PDF, 505 KB) .