This field records the Research Excellence Framework (REF) unit of assessment for staff

All staff who have an active contract of employment on the REF census date of 2013-10-31 and are eligible to be returned as Category A staff to the 2014 REF and where (Contract.ACEMPFUN is coded 2 or 3 and Contract.TERMS is coded 1 or 2) and Person.RESAST is not 1.

Person.REFUOA2014 is only applicable to staff who have an active contract of employment on the REF census date of 2013-10-31. Any staff who left the HEI prior to or joined after the REF census date should not be returned.

The unit of assessment of the staff member on the REF census date of 2013-10-31 should be returned, even if the staff member has changed areas of work during the reporting year.

All staff that have an FTE less than 20% will need to complete this field, as the FTE definitions within the REF are not applied to the HESA fields.

The first two characters in the valid entries are the Unit of Assessment the member of staff is associated with in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). The final character is the letter denoting the multiple submissions the member of staff is associated with or 'Z' where a multiple submission is not made. The letter (and title) for the multiple submissions have been provided to the REF contact at the HEI by the HEFCE REF team.

Valid entry patterns for the return of this data are: 01 - 36 followed by a letter A, B, C or Z.

Therefore, the letter within the valid entries denotes the multiple submission (if multiple submissions are made). For example, if the HEI made multiple submissions to sub-panel 17 (Geography, Environmental studies and Archaeology) - 1 in Geography (17A) and 1 in Archaeology (17B); the respective letter should be included for the staff member associated with that submission. If the HEI did not make multiple submissions it should be 17Z.

(Note: The multiple submission suffixes A, B, C and Z do not relate to the four Main panel groups (A, B, C and D) as defined in the REF2014 Units of Assessment).

The funding councils will use this data to assess submission patterns to the REF 2014.

Additional guidance on the configuration of the units of assessment for staff may be found under the Expert panels section of the REF2014 website.

The return of Research Excellence Framework (REF) information for all staff eligible for submission is important as the UK funding bodies are required to monitor the impacts of their policies, including the REF, on equality. The fact that staff selection rates vary significantly by unit of assessment means that any analysis that does not take account the units of assessment in which staff are active would be flawed.

Further information relating to HESA's Publication of contextual data to the Research Excellence Framework 2014, previously sent to institutional contacts is available under the 'Further guidance' section of the manual.

Any queries that relate to the REF should be addressed to [email protected], which will be monitored by HEFCE throughout 2014.

To support the Research Excellence Framework (REF)