It’s out! The CKU guidance is out! And it’s the focus of this episode.

We start with an update on our events, mainly focussing on their popularity. Both the Hidden REF Festival and the not-traditionally submitted output workshops that we ran recently at Kings and Liverpool have proven very popular.

We then discuss the guidance for the Contributions to Knowledge and Understanding (CKU) which was released on the 19th June 2025. Once again the REF have made clear their commitment that all outputs are equally important, and that outputs other than journal articles or books should be submitted. It won’t be clear which outputs will make the final list (that will happen in Autumn 2025), but the guidance indicates that the submittable outputs will be broader than the 2021 REF.

It’s not all good news. The way in which the guidance attempts to identify the people who are involved in research creates an ambiguity that could be used to exclude a lot of research-active roles. We get into a discussion about definitions of “substantive link”, “enabling research” and “role descriptor” and how their definition will be of fundamental importance to the inclusiveness of the next REF. We then venture into probability of outputs and how it will affect people: the spirit of the REF is there and the devil is in the details!

If there’s anything in the REF guidance that you would like us to investigate, please get in touch 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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