Research Excellence Frameworks and Institutional Positioning: What Researchers Must Understand

What Research Assessment Frameworks Are

Across the world, governments allocate quality-related research funding to universities through periodic research assessment exercises, exercises that evaluate the quality of a university's research and distribute funding accordingly. The results directly determine institutional budgets, staffing decisions, and long-term research strategy.

The major national frameworks include:

United Kingdom, Research Excellence Framework (REF) REF is conducted by the four UK funding bodies (Research England, Scottish Funding Council, HEFCW, and DfE Northern Ireland) every six to eight years. The most recent exercise was REF 2021. Institutions submit selected research outputs, impact case studies, and environment statements for peer review by expert panels. Results determine allocation of approximately £2 billion in annual research funding.

Australia, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) ERA is conducted by the Australian Research Council and assesses research quality at the Field of Research (FoR) code level. Unlike REF, ERA relies more heavily on bibliometric indicators, particularly Field-Weighted Citation Impact, for STEM fields, with peer review for humanities and creative arts.

New Zealand, Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) PBRF assesses individual researchers' quality categories (A, B, C, and emerging), with institutional funding allocated based on the distribution of categories across their research workforce.

South Africa, Research Output Policy South Africa's system subsidises individual publications and outputs through the Department of Higher Education and Training, making individual researchers' output directly relevant to institutional subsidy income.

Each system has distinct mechanics, but all share a common characteristic: research visibility infrastructure directly affects the assessed quality and volume of a unit's contribution.

How REF Works, And Why Visibility Matters

The UK REF is the most extensively documented research assessment exercise and illustrates the general principles applicable to other systems.

REF assesses research across three elements:

Outputs (60% of score in REF 2021): Individual research publications, which are selected by institutions and submitted for expert peer review. Outputs are scored 1* (recognised nationally), 2* (internationally recognised), 3* (internationally excellent), or 4* (world-leading). Only 3* and 4* outputs generate research funding; 4* outputs are worth four times more per unit than 3* outputs.

Impact (25% of score): Evidence that research has made a demonstrable difference beyond academia, to policy, clinical practice, culture, the economy, or society. This evidence is presented in Impact Case Studies: approximately 4-page narratives describing the research and its verifiable reach and significance.

Environment (15% of score): Evidence of the department's research infrastructure, culture, and capacity to produce and enable excellent research, including training, open research practices, and collaboration.

The visibility connection to Outputs: Outputs are peer-reviewed on quality. But which outputs reach peer reviewers in the first place is determined by which outputs the institution selects to submit, and the selection process relies on metrics (citation counts, field-weighted citation impact) to identify the strongest candidates from each research area. Outputs whose citations are fragmented across multiple author profiles, or that are under-cited because they are behind paywalls or in under-indexed journals, may not be identified as submission candidates even if their underlying quality warrants it.

The visibility connection to Impact: Impact case studies must demonstrate that research reached and influenced non-academic audiences. This is the domain where research communication infrastructure, policy briefs, lay summaries, media coverage, altmetric evidence, constitutes the evidential record. Researchers who have built communication practice throughout their career have the evidence base to support an impact case study; those who haven't are left trying to reconstruct a record retrospectively.

ERA's Bibliometric Dependence

Australia's ERA framework applies bibliometric indicators differently than REF, and makes the connection to visibility infrastructure even more direct.

For most STEM fields, ERA uses the following metrics:

• Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI): Average citations per paper, weighted for field and year, from Scopus
• ERA Journal List rating: Whether papers were published in ERA-rated journals (A*, A, B, C)
• International collaboration rates

These metrics are drawn directly from Scopus data. This means:

• A fragmented Scopus author profile suppresses the FWCI calculation for the researcher's institution
• Papers in non-ERA-listed journals do not contribute to the main metric even if highly cited
• Papers published in ERA-listed journals but not indexed in Scopus may not be captured

For ERA-assessed institutions, correct Scopus author profile consolidation, covered in our guide on Scopus author profile optimisation, is not an optional visibility improvement. It is a direct institutional assessment requirement.

Preparing Your Research for Assessment Exercises

Regardless of which national framework applies to you, the preparation principles are consistent:

Maintain a complete, accurate Scopus and/or Web of Science profile throughout your career. Don't wait for an assessment period to discover fragmentation. Yearly maintenance prevents problems that are expensive to fix in the months before a submission deadline.

Build your impact evidence base continuously. Impact case studies require evidence of reach and significance that was generated during the research period being assessed, often a period that ended years before the submission date. Policy citations, media coverage, clinical guideline changes, and practitioner training adoption cannot be created retrospectively. They must exist in the record.

Understand which outputs will be eligible. Assessment frameworks have eligibility criteria for outputs (date, type, origin). Know what your framework requires before selecting target journals and publication types.

Engage your institution's REF/ERA coordinator. Most institutions have a dedicated research assessment lead who manages the institutional submission. Understanding their timeline and criteria allows you to align your research programme with institutional submission needs years in advance.

Individual vs. Institutional Strategy

Individual researchers sometimes experience tension between their own career development strategy and institutional assessment strategy. Institutions may prefer certain journals, output types, or research areas that don't perfectly align with individual research agendas.

The most productive response is transparency: understand your institution's assessment priorities, be explicit with your department about where your research is heading, and ensure that your visibility infrastructure is strong enough that whatever you produce is correctly attributed and appropriately cited.

A researcher with strong individual visibility infrastructure, consolidated profiles, ORCID-verified publications, open access outputs, active communication practice, is simultaneously a better candidate for the institution's assessment submission and a more competitive individual grantee and collaborator.

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Research assessment exercises reward visible, well-attributed, well-communicated research. The Researchvy Intelligence division provides research assessment readiness audits, reviewing your bibliometric profile, impact evidence base, and output attribution for assessment compliance. For institutional leaders preparing for the next assessment cycle, Researchvy Partnerships offers structured assessment preparation programmes. Individual researchers can start with the Digital Visibility Clinic to ensure their profile is assessment-ready at the individual level.