Welcome to the seventh issue of the Research and Enterprise newsletter.
Welcome to the last edition of Research and Enterprise Newsletter for 2018-19. It has been a busy year for us all. At our last REF steering group meeting, earlier in July, a colleague who will be leaving us end of this year, told me Higher Education is now a very different sector to when he joined it 36 years ago. A very apt observation. Overall participation in higher education has increased from approximately 3% in 1950, to 8% in 1970, 19% in 1990, 33% in 2000 and 50% 2019. This is indeed progress making higher education more accessible. Long may this last. With this expansion comes complexity and different approaches to ensure quality of all we do is at a high standard. Hence the birth of research assessment back in 1989, QAA measures of teaching quality and then TEF in 2017 and the newest addition, coming in 2020: KEF (Knowledge Excellence Framework).
It is fair to say that this year what has occupied myself and my team, quite intensively, has been REF and specifically our Code of Practice. You can read about the REF update on page 4. We have now submitted our Code of Practice and would hear the outcome in August. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all your contribution to it. In particular I would like to thank Dr Anne Galliott and Ingrid Pugh who worked hard in putting it all together it and updating the various drafts.
So, as this is the last issue of the year, I thought it will be good to reflect what has been the highlights of the year for me. Our PGR festival in May was definitely one of the highlights. Now in its thirdyear, it was very good to see participation from all schools in one shape or form. Engaging with our PGRs is always an uplifting experience. Without them we will not have a solid base for our research and without their contribution to knowledge generation the future of research of will be bleak indeed... []
Professor Tara Dean
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)