REF 2029 Explained

REF 2029

The next planned cycle of the UK Research Excellence Framework, currently scheduled with a submission deadline in 2028 and results in 2029, with substantial design changes following the Future Research Assessment Programme.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 5 Sept 2026

Share this

Ask about REF 2029

Ask your first 2 questions free below. Subscribers get 150 a day for $29 a month.

An AI assistant specialized in research administration. It cites the sources behind every answer, labels web answers and says when it can't answer.

Answers draw on CASRAI's guides and dictionary plus the federal and funder documents we index: Federal Register, Grants.gov, Regulations.gov and UKRI.

Everything CASRAI publishes — this page, the dictionary, the guides and the news — stays free to read, with no account and no card.

REF 2029 emerges from the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP, 2021-2023). Key changes from REF 2021 include renaming the three assessment elements to Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding (50%), Engagement and Impact (30%), and Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE, 20%) — SPRE succeeds REF 2021’s Environment element (REF5a/REF5b statements) and was known during its pilot phase as “People, Culture and Environment” (PCE), a working name some earlier FRAP-era proposals still circulate at a different (25%) weighting; the confirmed, current figure is 20%. SPRE is scored via an Institution-Level Statement (60% of the SPRE score) and a Unit-Level Statement (40%), each covering four sections: context/mission/strategy, people, income/infrastructure/facilities, and collaboration/engagement/impact. Other REF 2029 changes include decoupling outputs from individual researchers in a way that explicitly de-emphasises the link between staff and outputs, and broader recognition of research contributions including team science and a wider range of output types. Detailed guidance modules are being finalised through 2026 and may still see small revisions.

References

2029.ref.ac.uk — REF 2029 guidance, Section 7: Strategy, People and Research Environment.
ref.ac.uk/2029. Research England Decisions on REF 2029 (2023). UKRI policy positions on responsible research assessment.

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="REF 2029"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ref-2029" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ref-2029",
  "name": "REF 2029",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ref-2029",
  "description": "The next planned cycle of the UK Research Excellence Framework, currently scheduled with a submission deadline in 2028 and results in 2029, with substantial design changes following the Future Research Assessment Programme.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/responsible-assessment#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ref-2029",
  "alternateName": [
    "REF2029"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "author": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
  },
  "datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:22:55",
  "dateModified": "2026-09-05T14:25:45",
  "inLanguage": "en-GB",
  "isAccessibleForFree": true
}