Universities that fail to “robustly” promote equality diversity and inclusion (EDI) face cuts to their research budgets under proposed reforms to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) – the mechanism that determines how £2 billion a year of taxpayer money is allocated for academic research.
Critics have warned the changes will put ideological conformity above academic excellence, further embedding EDI initiatives into higher education at the expense of scholarly rigour.
At present, the REF ranks universities on three weighted criteria: research output (60%), research impact (25%), and research environment (15%). Academics have long cautioned that this is a tool through which institutions exert control over individual academic pursuits. Criteria such as “impact” and “environment” have, in practice, allowed universities to influence the direction of research, often prioritising projects that align with institutional goals or external funding opportunities.
Since REF performance directly influences universities’ share of £2 billion in annual research funding, institutions have little choice but to “play the game”, moulding their priorities around its shifting requirements. Failure to meet its benchmarks means less money, fewer research posts, and declining prestige.
Under the reforms, however, this dynamic is poised to intensify. Research output will be downgraded to 50%, while a new “people, culture, and environment” category will rise to 25%, expanding EDI-related requirements, further shifting evaluative power toward institutional administrators.
Universities will be assessed on:
- The percentage of black, Asian, and mixed-race academics eligible for funding;
- The percentage of promotion success for underrepresented groups;
- “Documented evidence” that leadership of EDI initiatives is “appropriately recognised”;
- Monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of policies addressing under-representation and inequalities.
This means that a quarter of all research funding assessments will now be dictated by institutional culture, rather than academic output and impact. In other words, academics may find themselves under heightened pressure to conform to specific ideological frameworks, potentially at the expense of scholarly independence and the open exchange of ideas.
John Armstrong, a lecturer in financial mathematics at King’s College London, told The Times that the changes would have a “detrimental effect” on research quality. He said: “It is a clear attempt to take control of the research environment away from academics. There’s a serious risk of promoting positive discrimination over merit-based hiring.”
Ian Pace, a professor of music at City, University of London, warned that the REF is increasingly prioritising social engineering over academic rigour: “These changes will de-emphasise research outputs and put the focus instead on hitting arbitrary diversity targets – but not viewpoint diversity or academic freedom.”
Notably absent from the new REF criteria is any reference to academic freedom – despite mounting evidence that UK universities are restricting scholars’ ability to research and discuss topics such as the clash between trans rights and women’s sex-based rights.
Professor Julius Grower of the University of Oxford said the changes were causing widespread concern. “The fear is that REF is becoming a portal to enforcing compliance with a range of EDI policies with highly contestable content.” “People are increasingly worried it’s losing sight of its original purpose: promoting the pursuit of scholarly excellence.”
Universities have already faced criticism for their treatment of dissenting academics. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was passed precisely because of concerns about institutional intolerance toward politically inconvenient viewpoints. Yet rather than addressing this, the REF’s latest reforms risk entrenching a managerialist culture in which research funding depends on alignment with state-backed ideological priorities – as filtered through university-led ‘clusters’, ‘groups’ and ‘centres’ into which individual academics must now fit their work if they want to succeed.
While UK universities deepen their commitment to diversity policies, the corporate world is shifting in the opposite direction. On February 7, Accenture announced it would scrap its global diversity and inclusion goals after reassessing the US political climate. BT has removed diversity-linked targets from manager bonus schemes, and Google has abandoned its goal of recruiting more workers from underrepresented backgrounds. Even Labour’s own ministers are beginning to question EDI excesses. Health Secretary Wes Streeting recently admitted that the public sector had engaged in “some really daft things” in the name of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
The REF is the primary mechanism for distributing public research funds, and its latest iteration risks tying academia ever more tightly to state-mandated ideological goals.
If universities want to remain centres of intellectual excellence, they should be judged on the quality of their research, not their adherence to ideological litmus tests. With 5% of the FSU’s 3,000+ cases stemming from workplaces that prioritise EDI policies – and 20% involving disciplinary action, suspensions or dismissals – we know how easily these policies can be used to police lawful speech and suppress academic freedom.
There’s more on this story here.
