Humanities recognised for high volume of world-leading research in REF 2021

The UK funding bodies have today published the outcomes of the recent national research assessment exercise, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021.

Five of the ten subject areas in Humanities were judged to have the highest volume of world-leading 4*-rated research in the UK.

REF 2021 has been a huge collective effort across the collegiate University. In Main Panel D – where the Humanities Division submitted its academic staff with contributions from the other divisions and GLAM – we submitted 845 staff (797 Full-time Equivalent) including many early-career researchers; our most inclusive ever return. We provided 614 books among 1991 outputs and 62 impact case studies which reached out across more than 60 countries and documented the significant effects of our research on culture and society.

More broadly, the University made the largest submission of any Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the UK, submitting over 3,600 researchers (3,405 full time equivalent) into 29 subject areas, over 8,500 research outputs in a range of formats from journal articles to compositions, and 220 case studies about the impact of Oxford research beyond academia.

Professor Dan Grimley, Head of Humanities at Oxford University, said: “I am pleased to see an overall improvement in our performance in the REF compared to our previous submission in 2014. While the statistics measured by the REF can never truly capture the quality and value of Oxford’s Humanities research, these results do reflect the sheer amount of outstanding research we produce.

“I am also delighted by the inclusive approach that subject areas took in their submissions, with so many early-career researchers represented. We will take time in the coming months to review our results and use them to further improve the work we do and the support we provide to our researchers.”

Case studies of some of the research in the latest REF submission can be found on the University website: https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/recognition/REF2021