In this episode of What the REF?!, James, Gemma, and Simon reflect on an extraordinary few days at the Hidden REF Festival and explore what the new Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper could mean for the future of research assessment. The conversation begins with highlights from the Festival, where workshops, think-aloud experiments, and even a debate over Tom Cruise films versus K-pop tracks became creative ways to unpack how we evaluate non-traditionally submitted research outputs. What started as playful exercises quickly revealed deeper insights into the heuristics people use when making judgments, and how those can be made more explicit and fair in academic assessment.

The team also share the emotional impact of hearing from past Hidden REF competition winners. Stories like that of Laura Henderson, whose recognition in a Hidden Role has since led to expanded research support capacity in hospitals, underline why this work matters so much. A little recognition, they note, can have transformative effects on careers, institutions, and even patient outcomes. Alongside these moving moments, the Festival also laid the groundwork for expert working groups that will help shape guidelines for assessing diverse outputs, ensuring that the community itself drives the change.

From there, the discussion turns to the White Paper, which reaffirms the REF as the UK’s central mechanism for assessing research but hints at shifts in emphasis. The UK government’s focus on economic impact and the critique of a “one-size-fits-all” model of excellence suggest that the REF of the future may look very different. The team weigh up what this could mean for universities and for the broader definition of research excellence, noting both the risks of narrowing the focus and the opportunities for more inclusive recognition.

Together, these two threads — the grassroots energy of the Hidden REF Festival and the top-down direction of government policy — paint a picture of a research culture in transition. With the next Hidden REF competition on the horizon, the hosts argue that now is the moment to pull up our socks and get on with reshaping how excellence is defined and rewarded.

If there’s anything about the REF that you would like us to investigate, please get in touch with wtref@hidden-ref.org.

Our hosts are all members of the Hidden REF committee based at the universities of Southampton and Bristol: James Baker, Gemma Derrick - a self-confessed REF junkie - and Simon Hettrick, and our producer is Ben Thomas.

Find out more about the HiddenREF campaign at Hidden-REF.org

'What the REF' is made possible by the Embedding Trust in Evaluation (E-TIE) research grant from Research England.

Want to get in touch? Email: WTreF@hidden-ref.org

WTreF is co-produced by Simon Hettrick, Gemma Derrick, James Baker and Ben Thomas. Video and Sound production by Ben Thomas.

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