This document sets out the guidance and criteria for the pilot of the standalone assessment of the institutional-level environment statement. The pilot assessment will be undertaken in parallel to the unit level assessment of the environment in REF 2021 and this guidance is supplementary to the ‘Guidance on submissions’ (REF 2019/01) and the ‘Panel criteria and working methods’ (REF 2019/02).
In July 2018, the UK higher education funding bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland published a joint consultation on (i) the ‘Draft guidance on submissions’ (REF 2018/01) and (ii) the ‘Draft panel criteria and working methods’ (REF 2018/02) for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 exercise. This document summarises our analysis of the responses we received, and these informed the development of the final 'Guidance on submissions' (REF 2019/01) and final 'Panel criteria and working methods' (REF 2019/02) published in January 2019.
