0:00
Welcome to this,
0:02
the first of two sessions
0:04
that we're having in
0:06
relation to the
0:07
REF 2021 Code
0:10
of Practice.
0:11
My name's Pam Milne, I'm Director
0:13
of HR & OD here
0:15
at the University, and I'm
0:17
accompanied this morning by
0:19
Professor John Rowan, who's
0:21
Vice Principal for Research
0:23
and I'll be handing over very
0:25
shortly to John to do
0:27
the bulk of the presentation this
0:29
morning.
0:30
But, just by way of
0:32
introduction, I'm
0:34
actually chairing the
0:36
committee that's responsible
0:38
for the formulation
0:40
of the Code of Practice, and
0:43
just as other universities
0:45
up and down the country are doing,
0:47
we've been working on the
0:48
draft, which I hope you've all now
0:50
had an opportunity
0:52
to look at and
0:54
our responsibility,
0:56
I guess, in,
0:59
at the high level
1:01
is to draw up a Code of
1:03
Practice that frames
1:05
the decision making process that
1:07
we will go through here at
1:09
the University of Dundee in
1:11
relation to the REF
1:13
2021.
1:15
And that has to, those processes
1:17
and procedures that we, we we
1:19
have drawn up must
1:22
adhere to the context
1:25
of the principles of equality,
1:27
diversity and inclusion.
1:29
And that's been at the forefront
1:32
of our minds when we've been
1:33
formulating the code, that
1:36
you will, as I say, all have seen,
1:38
but this is our
1:40
whole community's opportunity
1:43
to look at the code, to
1:46
give comment on it, to
1:48
make suggestions on it or
1:50
indeed to, to say if you
1:52
feel it doesn't abide by
1:54
the rules that we're
1:56
trying to follow in relation to,
1:58
as I say, equality, diversity,
2:00
inclusion.
2:02
So without further
2:04
ado, and I'll pass over to,
2:06
to John, who has a short
2:08
presentation to go through this
2:10
morning.
2:12
Good morning, everybody.
2:13
Thank you, Pam. I think that was
2:14
actually very comprehensive.
2:16
In many respects, the presentation
2:19
that we have
2:22
is relatively
2:24
light, technically, but contains
2:26
some important information around
2:28
particular nuances of,
2:30
of the REF rules of engagement
2:32
so I don't want to
2:34
spend a lot of time going through
2:36
long slides, but I'm very
2:38
grateful to Clive Randall, our
2:40
research policy manager,
2:42
for producing the bulk of these
2:44
slides.
2:45
I don't want to go through too much
2:46
in detail and just talk at you.
2:48
The purpose of these sessions is
2:50
very much as part of our
2:52
communication and consultation
2:53
exercise, to try and invite
2:55
questions or observations
2:57
or clarifications or indeed
2:59
challenges from our academic
3:01
and University community more
3:02
broadly.
3:04
So I want to probably
3:06
pass through these slides really
3:07
rather, rather quickly, in
3:09
order that would free up some time
3:11
for discussion.
3:12
So if I'm going too fast,
3:14
please stop me.
3:16
If I'm going too slow, wave
3:18
vigorously, and I'll try and speed
3:19
up, OK?
3:21
So really, the kind of framing
3:23
of what I'm going to say today
3:25
is about the Code of Practice.
3:27
I think there's an important issue
3:28
around the submission of staff,
3:30
there are some important issues
3:33
technically around outputs,
3:34
and this is very much coming
3:36
at us from an equality,
3:38
diversity and inclusion perspective
3:41
to make sure that our processes are
3:43
as transparent and as fair
3:45
and as reasonable as they possibly
3:47
can be. So we enter this process
3:49
institutionally with an open mind
3:52
and I think a kind of clear
3:53
conscience, and our objective is to
3:54
try go through this as effectively
3:57
as we can, in the institutional
3:59
interest, but without
4:01
in any sense there have been any
4:02
collateral damage along the way.
4:03
So it's very much
4:06
a process for ourselves, for the
4:07
entire University community.
4:09
And then I'll finish on, on the
4:11
timescale towards the end.
4:12
But just for everybody's sake,
4:14
as we know, the REF has been
4:16
going in its various manifestations
4:18
for nearly 30 years.
4:20
It's about showing public
4:22
accountability of financial
4:24
investment in research.
4:25
It's about producing national
4:28
institutional yardsticks that
4:29
compare performance.
4:30
And it's also about,
4:33
through the Scottish Funding
4:34
Council's dual support mechanism, a
4:36
way to allocate research
4:38
excellence grants that underpins
4:40
research infrastructure.
4:41
So it's a really important process.
4:43
It brings into the institution,
4:45
alone, from REF outcomes,
4:48
£11.3 million pounds per year,
4:49
into the University and naturally,
4:53
institutionally, we want to raise
4:55
our performance because that means
4:56
for more resources to come in,
4:58
but equally, we need to do that in
4:59
an appropriate and proportionate
5:01
way.
5:02
So we'll just go through some of
5:03
these ideas themselves.
5:05
Now Pam gave a very elegant
5:07
and brief description of what we're
5:08
trying to do through the Code of
5:09
Practice, but it's very much about
5:11
trying to ensure that documents
5:13
develop and document and apply
5:15
a Code of Practice to be fair
5:17
and transparent.
5:18
It's, there's a really critical
5:20
thing about who goes in, which is
5:22
this notion of Category A staff,
5:24
it's quite a technical definition
5:25
but we'll come to that in a minute.
5:27
It's also important to understand
5:29
who qualifies as being an
5:31
independent researcher, and
5:33
therefore he or she can be part
5:35
of the REF process.
5:37
There's issues around the selection
5:38
of outputs, making sure that,
5:40
that colleagues feel appropriately
5:42
valued in the process and that their
5:44
work is being appropriately
5:45
represented in the
5:47
pool of outputs that are, being
5:49
coming from any individual unit.
5:51
And it's about ensuring that we've
5:53
got transparency in all of
5:54
our processes, around
5:57
the roles and the responsibilities
5:59
of our committees and groups.
6:00
And should there be an issue of
6:02
process, we want
6:04
to ensure that our Code of Practice
6:05
is sufficiently robust,
6:07
that we can have
6:10
an exploration and try and
6:11
resolve any issues without
6:13
it becoming too traumatic or too
6:16
extended in terms of process.
6:19
In terms of the submission of staff,
6:22
I think it's really important, and
6:24
I think all of you who are here know
6:26
this, the rules of the game have
6:27
changed a little bit from the last
6:28
time.
6:29
In this
6:31
instance, the REF rules allow us
6:33
to, to do one of two things.
6:35
Either define
6:37
in some quality,
6:39
quantitative way
6:41
what constitutes a substantive
6:42
contribution to research,
6:44
or to say that all researchers
6:47
who have research within their
6:48
contracts, be it
6:50
teaching in research or research
6:52
only, all of those staff
6:54
are, must be included
6:56
and it's that 100%
6:59
submission that we've gone for
7:00
within the University of Dundee.
7:03
Basically, in terms of qualifying
7:05
as having a significant
7:06
responsibility for research, which
7:07
makes you a category A member of
7:09
staff, that means you've got
7:11
independent research as part of
7:13
your, your day job.
7:15
As I say that's T and R and
7:17
R.
7:18
Typically that would mean you have
7:19
to have a 0.2
7:21
full time equivalent or larger.
7:23
And critically, from a census
7:25
perspective, that individual,
7:27
he or she, needs to be on the
7:28
payroll
7:31
at the census date of the 31st of
7:32
July 2020.
7:35
So there's other technical issues
7:36
there and around but for research
7:38
only staff, the important thing is
7:40
that from a REF perspective,
7:42
you meet the definition of an
7:43
independent researcher.
7:44
And just looking around our room
7:46
today, we've got colleagues from
7:48
Science and Engineering, and from
7:49
Social Sciences, and we know we've
7:51
got a very small number of, of
7:53
independent researchers who are
7:55
either senior research fellows or
7:57
research fellows within those
7:58
respective schools so I
8:00
think the issue of independence
8:02
is going to be relatively minor
8:04
as we'll unpack in just a few
8:06
minutes.
8:07
So in practise, that means that
8:09
all teaching and research staff are
8:11
in.
8:12
If you're R and you've got
8:13
independent status, then you
8:15
would similarly be in.
8:17
And that means if you are
8:19
self-directed, rather than
8:21
carrying out work for an individual,
8:23
you would be in.
8:24
So if you're, for example, a postdoc
8:26
and you're working on a research
8:28
council grant for three years,
8:30
then you're really working to
8:32
a principal investigator or
8:34
a, and consequently, that
8:36
would not be independent status so
8:38
they would just be not returned
8:40
as a full time member of staff,
8:42
but if you were, for example, people
8:44
like the Senior
8:46
Research Fellows, the Wellcome Trust
8:48
Fellows that we have in Life
8:48
Sciences and Medicine then they
8:50
are carrying out substantive
8:52
programmes of research under their
8:53
own steam, and they would in
8:55
turn qualify.
8:56
So I can come back to that,
8:59
if it's appropriate, we've got
9:00
a kind of extended
9:02
set of criteria which
9:04
equate to indicators of
9:06
independence, and this particular
9:08
slide just explains, as it does in
9:10
the code the research
9:12
assistants, for example, would not
9:13
be included.
9:15
Okay?
9:16
So we can come back to that if it's
9:17
appropriate, but otherwise I'm going
9:19
to move on.
9:20
Similarly, the, the
9:23
the so-called Category C staff
9:25
who are those who again have
9:27
substantive contracts outside of the
9:29
university but work within our
9:30
research community or affiliated to
9:32
our research community.
9:33
And historically that was typically
9:35
those who were, for example, working
9:37
in the NHS, but they would have
9:39
either an honorary contract
9:42
with the University or they'd be
9:42
working within our research
9:44
community.
9:45
They are not this time returned
9:47
into REF 2021,
9:50
and again, we can come back to that
9:51
if it's appropriate.
9:53
So we really only now have one
9:55
substantive category of staff,
9:56
Category A, who all in,
9:59
or Category C who are not
10:01
in. B and D are,
10:03
don't exist any longer, okay?
10:05
But we haven't reverted
10:07
C to a B, I know it sounds kind of
10:09
complicated and convoluted, but
10:11
that's the way it is.
10:13
In terms of outputs,
10:17
again, here the definition
10:19
of being able to claim
10:21
authorship of an output, a paper
10:24
or a book chapter
10:26
or artefact that you
10:28
create is a piece of art practice
10:30
or, for example,
10:32
from our Arts and Design
10:34
colleagues, taking part
10:36
in or curating a significant
10:39
exhibition or a portfolio of work
10:41
around an exhibition.
10:42
Those things qualify as outputs,
10:44
and to be able to claim that, you
10:46
have to demonstrate that you've had
10:47
a substantive contribution in the
10:49
production of that output.
10:52
And then in terms of the outputs
10:54
that are going in, it equates
10:56
to those staff who are in contract
10:57
and with us at the census date of
11:00
31st of July.
11:01
But also, we can claim the outputs
11:03
of staff who were with us
11:05
since 2014 but have subsequently
11:07
left, or indeed
11:09
contracts who were with us up until
11:11
some point where they were on a
11:12
Category A research T and R
11:14
contract, for example, and then
11:16
they switched contracts into another
11:18
domain, for example, into T and S
11:20
or into another substantive
11:22
role within the University, but no
11:24
longer with explicit
11:26
research within their title.
11:29
The rules of REF 2021
11:31
are different again from last time.
11:33
Last time we had two of four outputs
11:34
per person.
11:35
This time it's an average of two and
11:37
a half.
11:38
But to be in,
11:40
you need to have one
11:43
and you can return a maximum of
11:45
five.
11:45
So this time it's much less
11:47
about the individual and
11:49
his or her profile and much
11:51
more about the pool of outputs that
11:53
a unit of assessment can brigade
11:55
together.
11:56
And obviously, the
11:58
rules of the game being such as they
11:59
are, and the, and the weighting
12:01
that we see to 4* work
12:03
relative to 3* work.
12:05
The knowledge that SFC will only
12:07
fund 3 and 4*
12:09
work means that the rules of
12:11
the game are shifting as left
12:13
towards an emphasis upon
12:15
4*.
12:16
Now that naturally, because
12:18
of this two and a half average
12:20
per unit of assessment,
12:22
well,
12:24
inevitably, favour the larger groups
12:26
who've got more choice about
12:28
different kind of paper combinations
12:29
that they can produce, but
12:31
also for us, it means that we've got
12:33
to emphasise the quality work
12:35
and try and accentuate or maximise
12:38
the top end of our distribution
12:41
and in a sense, depersonalise it
12:43
from the individuals.
12:44
So it's really about how the
12:46
unit of assessment can perform as a
12:48
group as a whole, rather
12:50
than about at the level of the
12:51
individual.
12:53
But it is important to say that
12:56
we need to be mindful,
12:58
even though the rules of the game
12:59
have changed and it's a minimum of
13:01
one paper that's required.
13:03
This time we still acknowledge
13:05
that over the course of a REF
13:07
period from 2014,
13:11
January 20
13:13
14, up to
13:15
the close of the census in July
13:17
2020, it is possible
13:19
that colleagues have had challenges
13:21
in their research times.
13:24
They could've had interruptions, for
13:25
example, because they had a
13:27
significant period of time on
13:28
maternity, or they could have
13:30
other significant disruption within
13:32
their families, they could have been
13:33
off themselves due to some form
13:35
of illness or
13:38
a number of different factors which
13:40
could be considered to be individual
13:42
circumstances.
13:43
And so in the
13:45
Code of Practice, we explain
13:47
that this time the requirement
13:49
or the invitation
13:51
is for colleagues themselves
13:53
to declare their
13:55
individual circumstances and
13:57
to consider whether
13:59
those circumstances have compromised
14:01
their work sufficiently, that some
14:03
sort of allowance should be made
14:05
in terms of their, their profile.
14:08
Now the nature of the
14:10
stern, the stern
14:12
review requirements that everybody
14:14
put in a minimum of one and an
14:16
average of two and a half was to try
14:17
and create a bit more
14:19
flexibility and resilience
14:22
within that pool of outputs.
14:24
So for the most part, it's assuming
14:25
that if you've had a minor
14:28
amount of time off, that
14:30
shouldn't of a compromise your
14:31
ability to produce one
14:33
substantive output as a minimum.
14:35
But it may have affected your
14:37
ability to produce more than one.
14:39
And that's something that Pam's
14:41
committee as convenor may
14:43
wish to take a view
14:45
on.
14:46
And of course, there's the
14:48
circumstances that happen and effect
14:50
the individual.
14:51
But again, because of the nature of
14:52
our University and our structure, we
14:54
have a number of relatively small
14:56
units, and in a small
14:58
unit, one can imagine a situation
15:00
where multiple individuals
15:02
have had individual circumstances,
15:05
which cumulatively have
15:07
amounted to some sort of
15:09
compromise to the,
15:11
to the, to the research time
15:13
and the quality of the research time
15:15
that that group of academics
15:17
have had.
15:18
And again, there's the possibility
15:20
to invite
15:22
the Equality and Diversity Committee
15:24
to look, or the Individual
15:25
Circumstances Committee to look at
15:26
those, that case,
15:28
and take a view as to whether some
15:30
sort of dispensation, some sort of
15:32
allowance for mitigation can
15:34
be made.
15:34
Now again, we can return to that;
15:36
it's quite a complicated area, but
15:38
the important point to
15:40
remember is that there's those two
15:41
scales Individual Circumstances
15:44
and then that which is happening
15:46
at the unit of assessment group
15:48
level.
15:51
And just that the final point there,
15:53
one of the ways in which
15:55
we can see quite clearly
15:57
how the REF 2021
15:59
rules are seeking to, in a sense,
16:01
depersonalise it and make it more
16:03
about the unit of assessment
16:05
and the University is that we don't,
16:06
in fact, will not see the list of
16:09
staff submitted published
16:11
at the end of the exercise
16:13
within the final
16:15
REF production.
16:16
OK, so we know at a
16:18
university level how many members of
16:19
staff were in, those members of
16:21
staff who put forward a series of
16:22
papers into the output pool,
16:24
that the unit of assessment
16:25
coordinators and the staff
16:27
will discuss and decide
16:29
what is the best output profile that
16:31
they can, they can produce, and
16:33
that will be submitted into the REF,
16:35
but it would not be a direct tie
16:36
back into how many staff
16:38
submitted how many papers,
16:40
unless someone chose to kind
16:42
of forensically crawl over the
16:44
outputs, which will eventually
16:46
be, be published within
16:48
the feedback that comes out of REF
16:50
itself.
16:53
And so the Code of Practice has the
16:55
process, and this is part of our
16:57
consultation.
16:59
We have this open
17:01
at the moment.
17:02
The draft itself was developed by
17:04
our Equality, Diversity and
17:06
Inclusion Group, and Clive and
17:07
Adjit, and Pam's the convenor and
17:09
Nicky Miller here is the secretary
17:11
to, to that committee.
17:13
There is a process in terms
17:15
of our governance arrangements which
17:17
says after the consultation
17:20
closes and we've got feedback from
17:21
our community and maybe more of it
17:23
will be written rather than in
17:24
person.
17:26
When the feedback closes on the 6th
17:27
of May, we'll try and update
17:29
that and incorporate it into the
17:31
working document.
17:32
And then that will be shared with
17:34
PODCO, which is a subcommittee
17:36
of Court on the 20th of May
17:38
and then academically at Senate
17:40
on 22nd of May.
17:42
Signed off by UEG,
17:44
hopefully, on the 7th of June
17:47
and submitted to SFC
17:49
on, on the 5th of June and then
17:50
submitted to SFC on the 7th of June.
17:53
And then depending on how well
17:55
it lands with SFC and through the
17:57
advice they receive from
17:58
the main
18:00
Equality and Diversity Advisory
18:02
Panel (EDAP), we'll either get
18:04
feedback that says yes, it's
18:05
approved or why don't you change
18:07
this aspect of it
18:09
from the initial submission, there's
18:10
two further possibilities
18:12
for review dates.
18:14
And then all codes have been
18:16
approved, and we're confident
18:18
our code
18:20
will be approved, will be published
18:22
in December 2019.
18:26
The document tries to cut
18:28
through some of the text by using
18:30
graphics.
18:31
This is just to try and show you the
18:33
arrangement of decision making with
18:34
respect to individual circumstances,
18:37
unit of assessment circumstances,
18:40
to understand which, within
18:42
the layer of communities that we
18:44
have servicing the REF, would be
18:45
dealing with particular issues.
18:47
There's an appeals process,
18:49
which has two stages, an informal
18:51
and then a formal.
18:53
And again, I hope that we can talk
18:55
about that if there's any
18:56
clarification colleagues require.
18:58
But I think it's quite a nice
19:00
diagram that summarises
19:02
and synthesises that.
19:04
So final slide in terms of
19:05
timetable,
19:08
the kind of magic date that we're
19:10
all charging towards
19:13
is the 27th of November
19:15
2020, which is the closing
19:17
date for submissions.
19:19
In the spirit of great organisation,
19:22
Clive's determined that we should be
19:23
submitting our documentation
19:25
several weeks in advance because
19:26
there's historically always a
19:28
massive logjam in
19:30
the final frantic days,
19:32
weeks and days before that
19:33
submission.
19:34
But we can work back and you can see
19:36
that there's a number of milestones
19:38
along the way that tell us that
19:39
we're preparing appropriately
19:43
and I hope that you as individuals
19:45
who are part of that process and
19:47
those of you who are managing and
19:48
supporting the process can
19:50
agree that we've got
19:52
a common purpose here and through
19:54
that common purpose we try and
19:56
advance the University's case for
19:58
academic excellence and reputation
20:01
and recognition in the form of
20:04
the Research Excellence Grant, which
20:05
is a fundamental part of the
20:07
lifeblood of our research
20:08
economy. So that's all I
20:10
want to say at this stage,
20:12
I hope that's reasonably clear.
