Law Faculty REF FAQs

Q: Do I need to know about the REF if I am a fixed term researcher?

A: Yes—research carried out by those on fixed term contracts forms a vital part Faculty’s contribution to knowledge and understanding in Law. We therefore hope that this research will equally form an important part of our submission to REF2029. To enable this, it is important that all Faculty members, including those who do not expect to be in post at the end of 2028, ensure that their research is eligible for REF submission, by following these steps:

• Add all your research publications to Symplectic Elements—instructions here.
• Comply with the Open Access requirements for journal articles and published conference proceedings by using Symplectic to 'Act on Acceptance', ensuring the accepted version is uploaded within three months of acceptance. (This is vital as complying with the Open Access requirements will be necessary to allow publications to be submitted to REF2029, whether by Oxford or any other UK institution for which you may go on to work.)
• Reply to requests from the Faculty to nominate the research outputs which you would like the Faculty’s REF review panel to consider for inclusion in our REF submission.

Q: Is the Faculty’s REF review panel interested in edited collections?

A: Yes – chapters from edited collections can be submitted for REF2029. 

If you have edited/co-edited the whole collection, then the whole collection can be submitted (including any chapter you have contributed to). The focus of the REF2029 panel will be wholly on the quality of the piece itself, not its place or form of publication. Certainly, some chapters in edited collections were awarded 4* in REF2021. It is true that some such chapters do not go through the rigorous peer-review which can improve the quality of a journal article, and this is why in general there is a perception that chapters in edited collections are not as well-regarded as journal articles, but of course there are many examples of really excellent chapters in edited collections.

If an edited/co-edited book as a whole is submitted, then the REF2029 panel will look at the contribution made as editor (e.g. in organising the project as a whole) in addition to the contribution made by the editor/co-editor if also providing a chapter for the book. Of course, the contribution made as editor is different from that made, for example, as author of a monograph, but nonetheless that contribution is substantial and will be acknowledged. 

It is in any case also very useful for the REF Co-ordinators to know of such edited collections produced by Faculty members, as they provide excellent evidence of our research culture and environment and our broader contribution to knowledge and understanding in law.