REF 2029 Panel Members: Who Sets the Criteria

REF 2029 panel members are the academics, practitioners and non-academic experts appointed to the four main panels and 34 sub-panels that will set discipline-level assessment criteria and judge institutional submissions for the UK’s next Research Excellence Framework. Recruitment ran through open application in 2024–2025 — a first for the REF, replacing the nomination system used in REF 2021 — and the panels appointed under that process are now the body directly shaping the criteria, after a short government-ordered pause in autumn 2025.

REF 2029 is the UK’s next national research assessment exercise, run jointly by the four UK higher education funding bodies to allocate around £2 billion a year in quality-related research funding to higher education institutions based on the quality of their research outputs, impact and environment.

• What is REF 2029 panel recruitment?
• How were REF 2029 panel members recruited?
• Who are the REF 2029 main and sub-panel chairs?
• What does panel recruitment mean for the REF 2029 criteria?
• Answer-first questions on REF 2029 panels
• Implications for institutions and researchers

What Is REF 2029 Panel Recruitment?

Panel recruitment is the process by which the four UK higher education funding bodies — Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, Medr (Wales’ Commission for Tertiary Education and Research) and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland — appoint the experts who will run REF 2029. There are two panel types.

• Main panels (four in total) set the overall approach and criteria for assessing outputs, impact and environment within their disciplinary area, and approve final assessment outcomes.
• Sub-panels (34 in total, one per Unit of Assessment) develop discipline-specific criteria and carry out the detailed assessment of institutional submissions.

Each main panel includes its sub-panel chairs plus members with interdisciplinary, international and non-academic expertise. This structure mirrors REF 2021, but the route into panel membership does not.

How Were REF 2029 Panel Members Recruited?

For the first time in the REF’s history, every panel role was filled through open application rather than nomination. REF 2029’s own account of the process says this was designed “to support more transparent and consistent processes whilst removing barriers to application for everyone,” shaped with sector bodies and the REF 2029 People and Diversity Advisory Panel (PDAP).

Recruitment moved through four stages:

• Main panel chairs were recruited and confirmed first, ahead of the wider sub-panel campaign.
• Sub-panel chairs and deputy chairs for all 34 Units of Assessment were then recruited, with applications for panel and sub-panel member roles closing by 28 April 2025, as the Royal Economic Society reported at the time; the appointed chairs and deputy chairs were announced on 22 May 2025.
• Full panel membership — the wider pool of sub-panel members and assessors — was announced on 4 September 2025, described by the REF team as a “highly qualified and diverse group of experts” appointed across all 34 UoAs, including over two dozen panellists from industry, policy and third-sector organisations.
• Further targeted recruitment is scheduled for 2027, informed by a sector-wide survey of submission intentions and any gaps in panel expertise identified during criteria setting.

Shortlisting expertise was drawn from the REF Steering Group, relevant sector bodies and, once appointed, the panel chairs themselves. Applicants could optionally complete a diversity survey; that data was stripped from applications before assessment, in line with UKRI processes, and will be reported on separately in early 2026.

Who Are the REF 2029 Main and Sub-Panel Chairs?

The 34 sub-panels sit beneath four main panels, each covering a broad disciplinary group:

• Main Panel A — Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
• Main Panel B — Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics
• Main Panel C — Social Sciences
• Main Panel D — Arts and Humanities

For example, Sub-panel 1 (Clinical Medicine) is chaired by Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London, with Diana Eccles of the University of Southampton as deputy chair — one of 34 discipline-specific leadership pairs confirmed across the exercise. A small number of deputy chair appointments, including for Chemistry and Computer Science and Informatics, were finalised slightly later. The full, current roster for every Unit of Assessment sits on REF’s own panels pages rather than reproduced here, since composition is periodically refined through further recruitment rounds to 2027.

What Does Panel Recruitment Mean for the REF 2029 Criteria?

The timing of panel recruitment matters because it happened before a significant interruption to the criteria-setting timetable. In September 2025, UK Science Minister Lord Vallance announced at the Universities UK conference that the four funding bodies would pause criteria setting and final guidance “to take stock, ensure alignment with government priorities… and reflect on feedback from the sector.” The panels — chairs, deputy chairs and members — had already been appointed that same day, so they could begin criteria-setting work the moment the framework was confirmed, without a second recruitment cycle.

When the pause concluded, the funding bodies published updated policy that changed how REF 2029 will actually be weighted:

SPRE replaces the previously trialled “People, Culture and Environment” element and builds on the REF 2021 Environment component, informed by a PCE pilot report published alongside the update. A recommended maximum of five outputs per researcher was reinstated, the minimum-of-one requirement was dropped, impact case study requirements were reduced to one for the smallest units, and the 2* qualifying threshold for underpinning research was removed.

One further governance point deserves attention: the funding bodies confirmed there will be no formal consultation on the final guidance or the Panel Criteria and Working Methods, in order to hold the original REF 2029 timetable. That leaves the already-recruited panels — not a fresh sector-wide consultation round — as the primary mechanism through which discipline-level detail gets finalised. Panels began meeting in early 2026 to set criteria, which is why who sits on them, and how they got there, is now a governance question with direct consequences for submission requirements.

Answer-First Questions on REF 2029 Panels

What are the key changes for REF 2029?

REF 2029 introduces Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE), weighted at 20%, replacing the trialled “People, Culture and Environment” element. Contributions to Knowledge and Understanding is weighted 55% and Engagement and Impact 25%. Outputs remain decoupled from individuals, and unit-level statements have been removed to reduce sector burden.

How many units of assessment are there in REF 2029?

REF 2029 retains 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs), unchanged in number from REF 2021. Each UoA is assessed by an expert sub-panel operating under one of four main panels covering medicine and health, physical sciences and engineering, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Who runs the REF?

The REF is run by a REF team managed by Research England on behalf of the UK’s four higher education funding bodies — Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, Medr, and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland — who jointly own it as a UK-wide programme of national research assessment.

What is engagement and impact in REF 2029?

Engagement and Impact (E&I), weighted 25% of the overall score, assesses the demonstrable benefit research has beyond academia. Impact case study requirements have been reduced to one for the smallest submitting units, and the previous 2* qualifying threshold for underpinning research has been removed.

Implications for Institutions and Researchers

Three practical points follow for research administration teams. First, panel composition is now discipline-owned: sub-panels, not a single central body, are writing the detailed criteria for each Unit of Assessment, so institutional REF contacts should track guidance at sub-panel level, not just headline main-panel weightings.

Second, with no formal consultation round on the final guidance, engagement now runs through REF Talks, town halls and sector-body channels rather than written consultation — institutions wanting influence need to use those live channels while criteria setting is underway.

Third, the 2027 top-up recruitment round means panel composition is not fixed until closer to the assessment phase; institutions with relevant expertise, including professional services staff, technicians and librarians (recruited into REF 2029 panels for the first time), retain a further opportunity to apply.

Taken together, the shift to open recruitment and the post-pause weighting changes mean REF 2029’s criteria are being finalised by a panel population that looks structurally different from REF 2021: more open in its selection, more heavily weighted toward research environment, and operating with less formal sector sign-off. For research administration teams preparing Code of Practice submissions, that makes early, sub-panel-level engagement more valuable than in any previous REF cycle.