The membership of the main and sub-panels for the assessment phase of REF 2021 are provided below:
Criteria phase
The criteria phase of the REF took place in 2018, involving the development of the detailed guidance and criteria for REF 2021.
During this phase the funding bodies appointed sufficient members to ensure each sub-panel had appropriate expertise for setting the criteria (including of interdisciplinary research and the wider use of research). At this stage also the funding bodies appointed a proportion of the members who are joining the sub-panels for the assessment phase.
Assessment phase
The REF assessment phase commences in late 2020 and will continue throughout 2021 and early 2022. This will involve the preparation for and full assessment of submissions made by institutions.
During 2020, the funding bodies have appointed further members and assessors to the sub-panels, to ensure each sub-panel has an appropriate breadth of expertise and volume of panel members necessary for the assessment of REF submissions. The appointments were informed by analysis of institutions’ submission intentions, provided at the end of 2019. New appointments have been made from nominations submitted following the recent call in 2020, as well as from the original nominations received in 2017. The recent nominations call was extended to September 2020 (from the original April deadline), following the decision in March 2020 to put the REF on hold for an interim period.
Further panel appointments
The REF team are continuing to finalise appointments to the panels in a small number of areas. The panel membership lists will be updated where new appointments are made.
Recruitment process
All REF panel chairs and members are appointed by the four UK funding bodies. The chairs of the REF main and sub-panels were appointed following an open application process. Members of the REF panels are appointed following a nominations process. Details of this process are set out in the ‘Roles and recruitment of the expert panels’.
An updated membership list has been published, and updates will be made periodically thereafter to reflect any changes in membership details following this.
Conflicts of interest
A list of the major conflicts of interest declared by main and sub-panel members for the assessment phase of REF 2021 are provided below. The arrangements for managing conflicts of interest during the assessment are set out in Annex D of the ‘Panel criteria and working methods':