The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is unlikely to be fully implemented until 2013 for all disciplines according to a HEFCE circular letter distributed recently to all VCs of HEIs based in England:

HEFCE Update on the Research Excellence Framework

Previously it had been thought that the controversial bibliometrics elements of the REF could be ready to inform funding allocations from 2010 for certain science-based subjects. However, it now appears that institutions won’t have a full record of all publications by this date to enable a robust citation analysis to be carried out. From the circular:

We remain committed to full implementation of the REF in 2013, to drive QR allocations from 2014. The timetable for the transitional stages leading up to full implementation are yet to be determined in detail; the REF proposals that we publish in autumn 2009 will include a proposed timetable for phasing in the REF leading to full implementation in 2013. At this stage we envisage that during calendar year 2010 we will initiate a sector-wide bibliometrics process in an appropriate range of subjects. We recognise that not all institutions will, at that stage, have systems in place that will have systematically recorded all relevant research outputs. It is therefore likely that this first sector-wide bibliometrics process starting in 2010 will be developmental to some extent, and we will use it to inform a small element of funding only if found to be sufficiently robust.

The “appropriate range” of subjects has yet to be made clear. What is clear is that the REF will be more heavily based on quantitative indicators than the RAE. Some kind of citation analysis is likely to feature, as are metrics for research income and research students, though a final decision on the “family of indicators” has yet to be made. The REF will feature some form of expert peer review, though it’s likely that it won’t play as central a role as in the RAE.

Times Higher has a piece on this news appended to an item about the RAE. THE reports that the announcement was made by Graeme Rosenberg, who is managing the pilot for HEFCE, at a conference on the REF at Kings College two weeks ago.