REF university rankings built from the 2021 exercise could shift meaningfully under REF 2029: the funding bodies have confirmed a weighting move away from research outputs (60% to 55%) and toward the renamed environment component (15% to 20%), which is scored 60% at institutional level. That rebalancing changes what “winning” the league table means.
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the UK’s periodic, panel-based assessment of research quality across higher education institutions (HEIs), run jointly by the four UK funding bodies to inform roughly £2 billion a year in block-grant research funding. The next full cycle, REF 2029, has now moved from consultation into criteria-setting after a formal pause and resumption in late 2025 — making this the first moment institutions can meaningfully compare REF 2021 outcomes with confirmed REF 2029 rules rather than draft proposals.
- What do the REF 2021 university rankings actually show?
- What is changing under REF 2029?
- Could REF 2029 reorder the league table?
- REF rankings: answered
- Implications for institutional positioning
What do the REF 2021 university rankings actually show?
There is no single official REF “league table.” REF 2021 published subject-level quality profiles for 157 institutions across 34 units of assessment, and publishers built their own institutional rankings from that data using different methodologies. Times Higher Education (THE) and Research Professional News (RPN) each produced a ranking, and they do not agree with each other because they weight staff volume differently.
Overall, REF 2021 results showed 41% of submitted outputs rated 4* (“world-leading”) and 43% rated 3* (“internationally excellent”), according to THE’s analysis of the official results published 12 May 2022 — a marked rise on 2014. Main panel C (social sciences) recorded the largest number of submissions of any panel, up on 2014, while main panel D (arts and humanities) submissions fell, reflecting reported departmental contraction in that area.
| Rank | THE quality (GPA) | THE research power |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Imperial College London | University of Oxford |
| 2 | Institute of Cancer Research | University College London |
| 3 | University of Cambridge | University of Cambridge / LSE |
| 4 | — | University of Edinburgh |
| 5 | University of Bristol | University of Manchester |
A university can rank highly on pure quality (GPA) while falling well outside the top ten on research power, which multiplies GPA by the number of staff submitted. That distinction — quality versus scale — is exactly the axis REF 2029 is now adjusting.
What is changing under REF 2029?
REF 2029 renames and reweights the three assessment elements. The funding bodies confirmed final weightings in December 2025, after UK Science Minister Lord Vallance paused criteria-setting in September 2025 for further sector engagement. The confirmed structure is published in the REF 2029 team’s official guidance.
| Element | REF 2021 weighting | REF 2029 weighting | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outputs → Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding (CKU) | 60% | 55% | −5 points |
| Impact → Engagement and Impact (E&I) | 25% | 25% | No change |
| Environment → Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE) | 15% | 20% | +5 points |
The renamed environment element, Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE), builds on findings from the REF’s People, Culture and Environment (PCE) pilot. Within SPRE, an institution-level statement (ILS) is worth 60% of the SPRE score, with a unit-level statement (ULS) worth the remaining 40% — a structural detail confirmed in the REF 2029 team’s Section 7 guidance, published 10 December 2025. This means roughly 12% of a unit’s total REF 2029 profile (60% of the 20% SPRE weighting) is now determined by institution-wide strategy and culture, not subject-level performance.
- The requirement that every researcher submit at least one output has been removed, though a recommended maximum of five outputs per researcher is reinstated.
- Outputs remain decoupled from named individuals under the substantive-link policy, broadening how “volume” is calculated using HESA staff data.
- Impact case study requirements are reduced for the smallest units, and the 2* qualifying threshold for underpinning research is removed.
Under the current timetable, submissions open in autumn 2027, the submission deadline falls in autumn 2028, and results are due for publication in December 2029.
Could REF 2029 reorder the league table?
A five-point shift sounds modest, but it moves scoring weight from a metric institutions have optimised for since 2014 (output volume and quality) toward one that rewards institutional-level strategy and culture almost regardless of subject strength. That structural change, not the headline percentages alone, is what could reshuffle positions.
Institutions likely to benefit are those with a well-resourced, well-evidenced institutional research strategy that can carry a strong ILS score across every unit of assessment they submit — because that 60%-weighted institutional component now applies uniformly, unlike output quality, which varies subject by subject. Universities whose REF 2021 standing rested heavily on a small number of prolific “star” researchers may see less benefit from that concentration, since outputs are decoupled from named individuals and volume is now built from broader HESA staff data rather than submitted-output counts alone.
Conversely, institutions with strong output quality but a thin institutional environment narrative face a harder trade-off: a five-point cut to CKU is a real reduction in the component that has driven most REF 2021 rankings, and it is not automatically offset unless the SPRE submission is equally strong at both levels. Because the funding bodies deliberately minimised structural change to limit sector burden, the reordering effect will depend more on how consistently institutions execute the new ILS/ULS split than on the weighting shift alone.
REF rankings: answered
What is the 3* and 4* rating as defined by the Research Excellence Framework REF?
REF grades submissions on a five-point scale. Four-star work is quality that is world-leading in originality, significance and rigour; three-star is internationally excellent but short of that highest standard, followed by two-star, one-star and unclassified grades. In REF 2021, 41% of outputs were rated 4* and 43% rated 3*, per Times Higher Education’s analysis of the official results.
What is the Research Excellence Framework Award?
The REF is not a single prize but the UK’s periodic system for assessing research excellence across higher education institutions, run by the four national funding bodies. Its outcomes determine how roughly £2 billion a year of block-grant research funding is allocated, and provide public accountability evidence for that investment, per the official REF 2029 site.
What are the top 5 Russell Group universities?
Rankings vary by metric. On THE’s REF 2021 quality (GPA) measure, leading performers included Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Oxford and the University of Bristol. On “research power” — GPA weighted by submitted staff volume — Oxford, UCL, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Manchester led instead.
What are the top 10 research institutions?
No single official REF 2021 “top 10” exists; publishers rank differently by methodology. THE’s research-power table placed Oxford, UCL, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, King’s College London, Nottingham, Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Bristol in its top ten, combining quality with submitted staff numbers.
Implications for institutional positioning
For research administration teams, the practical response to REF 2029 is not to wait for final panel criteria before acting on SPRE. Institutions can start building the evidence base an institution-level statement will require well ahead of the autumn 2028 submission deadline.
- Audit existing research-culture evidence against the four SPRE sections (context/mission/strategy; people; income/infrastructure/facilities; collaboration/engagement/impact) rather than waiting for the REF 2021 environment template to be reissued unchanged.
- Treat the institutional research strategy as a REF-relevant document, since the ILS now carries 60% of the SPRE score across every submitted unit.
- Reassess reliance on output-driven prestige, given the five-point reduction in CKU weighting and the removal of the one-output-per-researcher minimum.
- Track REF 2029 guidance updates directly, since panel criteria, indicators and word limits are still being finalised through 2026.
REF 2021 rankings reflected a system built almost entirely around output quality and volume. REF 2029 does not abandon that logic — CKU still carries the largest single weighting at 55% — but it structurally raises the ceiling on what institutional strategy and culture can contribute to a unit’s profile. Whether that reorders the familiar names at the top of the table by December 2029 depends less on the confirmed percentages and more on which institutions treat SPRE as a genuine strategic exercise, not a relabelled REF 2021 environment statement. Institutions engaging with research administration planning now, ahead of final panel criteria in 2026, are better placed to manage that transition.