REF Panels A to D: Which Assesses Your Subject

REF panels are the four disciplinary groupings — Main Panel A, B, C and D — through which the UK’s Research Excellence Framework organises its 34 units of assessment (UoAs). Every UK higher education submission is assessed by the sub-panel covering its subject, with the main panel above it setting shared criteria and calibrating outcomes across related fields. Knowing which panel and UoA your discipline sits under determines the assessment criteria, the sub-panel membership, and how your submission will be benchmarked.

A REF main panel is one of four expert bodies — Medicine, Health and Life Sciences (A); Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics (B); Social Sciences (C); and Arts and Humanities (D) — that oversee groups of sub-panels responsible for the detailed peer review of research submitted under the Research Excellence Framework.

• What are the REF main panels?
• How the 34 units of assessment map to Panels A–D
• Panel-by-panel breakdown: which discipline sits where
• How sub-panels and main panels work together
• REF 2029 vs REF 2021: what changed in the panel structure
• Answer-first Q&A
• Implications for institutions and researchers

What are the REF main panels?

The Research Excellence Framework groups every submitted discipline into one of four main panels. Each main panel provides leadership and consistency across a cluster of sub-panels rather than marking submissions itself — the detailed review happens one level down, inside the relevant sub-panel and unit of assessment.

The four main panels for REF 2029, continuing the structure used in REF 2021, are administered by Research England on behalf of the four UK higher education funding bodies. Their scope is fixed by discipline group, not by institution type or submission size.

How the 34 units of assessment map to Panels A–D

REF 2029 retains 34 units of assessment (UoAs), the same total confirmed for REF 2029 sub-panel leadership appointments made in June 2025. Each UoA sits under exactly one main panel, and institutions submit to the UoA that matches the subject content of the research being assessed — not necessarily the name of the department it came from.

Panel-by-panel breakdown: which discipline sits where

Use this breakdown to identify the correct main panel before checking which sub-panel and UoA your submission belongs to.

Main Panel A: Medicine, Health and Life Sciences

Main Panel A covers clinical, biomedical and life-sciences research. Its units of assessment include Clinical Medicine; Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care; Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy; Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; Biological Sciences; and Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Sciences.

Main Panel B: Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics

Main Panel B assesses the core physical and computational sciences: Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science and Informatics, and Engineering.

Main Panel C: Social Sciences

Main Panel C is the largest of the four, spanning twelve UoAs: Architecture, Built Environment and Planning; Geography and Environmental Studies; Archaeology; Economics and Econometrics; Business and Management Studies; Law; Politics and International Studies; Social Work and Social Policy; Sociology; Anthropology and Development Studies; Education; and Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism.

Main Panel D: Arts and Humanities

Main Panel D covers ten UoAs: Area Studies; Modern Languages and Linguistics; English Language and Literature; History; Classics; Philosophy; Theology and Religious Studies; Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory; Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies; and Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management.

How sub-panels and main panels work together

Each of the 34 sub-panels reviews outputs, impact case studies and environment statements for its own UoA using shared REF assessment criteria and level definitions. The main panel above it does not re-mark individual submissions; it calibrates judgements across its sub-panels so that a 4* rating means the same thing whether the sub-panel is Physics or Engineering.

• Sub-panels appoint assessors with specific subject expertise, including practice-based and interdisciplinary reviewers.
• Main panel chairs and deputy chairs sit above sub-panel chairs and are responsible for cross-panel consistency.
• Two advisory panels — the People and Diversity Advisory Panel (PDAP) and the Research Diversity Advisory Panel (RDAP) — support all four main panels on equality and interdisciplinary research issues, a structure reshaped for REF 2029.

REF 2029 vs REF 2021: what changed in the panel structure

The four-main-panel, 34-UoA architecture used in REF 2021 carries through into REF 2029 unchanged at the top level. What has changed is process and governance around the panels rather than the disciplinary map itself.

REF 2029 opened main and sub-panel recruitment in December 2024, and appointments to lead the 34 sub-panels — chairs and deputy chairs — were confirmed in June 2025. The advisory panel structure was also reshaped ahead of REF 2029, replacing the previous equality and diversity advisory arrangement with the two-panel PDAP/RDAP model described above. Institutions preparing REF 2029 submissions should treat the UoA-to-main-panel mapping as stable but check current sub-panel membership and guidance directly, since individual appointments and criteria documents are updated as the cycle progresses.

Answer-first Q&A

What is a REF panel?

A REF panel is an expert review body within the Research Excellence Framework. There are two levels: four main panels (A–D) that provide oversight and consistency, and 34 sub-panels nested beneath them that carry out the detailed assessment of submissions within a specific unit of assessment.

What does REF stand for?

REF stands for the Research Excellence Framework, the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research produced by higher education institutions. It has run in 2014 and 2021, with the next exercise, REF 2029, currently in preparation under Research England.

What is the REF unit of assessment?

A unit of assessment (UoA) is one of 34 subject groupings that institutions submit research into for REF review. Each UoA sits under one of the four main panels and is assessed by a dedicated sub-panel using criteria for outputs, impact and research environment.

Why is REF 2029 important?

REF 2029 determines the quality-related research (QR) funding that UK higher education institutions receive from the four funding bodies, and its results shape institutional reputation, research strategy and academic recruitment for years after each cycle.

Implications for institutions and researchers

Research administrators planning REF 2029 submissions should map every output and impact case study to its correct UoA and main panel early, since criteria, level definitions and sub-panel expertise differ by panel even where subject boundaries appear to overlap — for example, interdisciplinary work sitting between Main Panel B and Main Panel C. This matters most for teams coordinating cross-departmental submissions, where research administration functions typically own the mapping exercise between departmental structures and REF UoAs.

Institutions should also track sub-panel membership announcements directly from Research England, since chairs and deputy chairs — not main panel labels — set the specific guidance sub-panels apply when interpreting borderline submissions.

The panel structure is unlikely to change again before REF 2029 submissions close, so the practical task now is operational: confirming which UoA each output belongs to, aligning environment statements with the correct main panel’s expectations, and monitoring sub-panel-level guidance as it is published.