This field records the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Unit of Assessment for staff

Compulsory for all staff in HEPs intending to participate in REF2021, who have at least one active contract of employment on the REF census date of 2020-07-31 which meets the definition of Category A eligibility: (Contract.TERMS = 1 or 2) and ((Contract.ACEMPFUN = 2 and Contract.RESAST is not 1) or (Contract.ACEMPFUN = 3)). This field should be completed for staff when Contract.SIGRES is coded 1 and 2.

Person.REFUOA2021 is only applicable to staff who have an active contract of employment on 2020-07-31. Any staff who left the provider prior to or joined after this date should not be returned.

Further details on Category A eligible staff can be found in the Guidance on submissions paragraphs 117 to 122.

The unit of assessment of the staff member on the 2020-07-31 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.

Valid entry patterns for the return of this data are: 01 - 34 followed by a letter A, B, C or Z.

We will collect three characters as valid entries, which is the Unit of Assessment number and category that the member of staff is associated with. Providers are welcome to submit codes 'A, B and C' which will denote (where applicable) where the member of staff is associated with a multiple submission. Z denotes where a multiple submission is not made.

Therefore, the letter within the valid entries denotes the multiple submission (if multiple submissions are made). For example, if the provider made multiple submissions to sub-panel 14 (Geography and Environmental studies) - 1 in Geography (14A) and 1 in Environmental Studies (14B); the respective letter should be included for the staff member associated with that submission. If the provider did not make multiple submissions it should be 14Z.

See Guidance on submissions, paragraphs 73 to 78, for further information on multiple submissions.

The funding bodies intend to undertake a cross-check of this data with HESA cost centre data, as described in the Guidance on submissions, paragraph 67.

Frequently asked questions that relate to the REF 2021 and policy matters can be found here. Any queries that relate to the REF should be addressed to [email protected], which will be monitored by Research England.