Welcome to Under Review, the podcast where we stop tweaking the edges and start reimagining a future where things might actually work. I’m Andy Tattersall, and today, we aren't here to talk about incremental policy changes. We’re here to ask: What would we stay, what would we build from scratch, and what needs throwing into the Under Review rubbish bin?

Joining me today is one of the sector’s leading thinkers on how we value and measure research and knowledge and the impact it can make on society. Dr Elizabeth Gadd is the Head of Research Innovation Culture and Assessment at Loughborough University. She is a qualified librarian, the Chair of the INORMS Research Evaluation Group, and the past Vice-Chair of CoARA (the Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment). Elizabeth has spent her career navigating the data, the ethics, and how we judge excellence. She has worked on The Metric Tide Revisited, which is a review of the role of metrics in the next UK Research Excellence Framework, AKA the REF. 

In this episode we discuss the REF and the challenges of implementing responsible research assessment principles for assessing quality and addressing institutional shortcomings.

We discussed University rankings as part of an endemic research culture issue, leading institutions to prioritise citation metrics and publication-focused behaviours. As well as a few things going into the Under Review bin, Lizzie made various recommendations as to how things can be done more efficiently, fairly and with the right answers.

Elizabeth Gadd - University of Loughborough

Elizabeth Gadd on Bluesky

REF 2029 will still move the needle on research culture

Can ChatGPT evaluate research environments? Evidence from REF2021