Featured Post from ExpertFile

A Big Week in the Measurement of Expertise: How the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) Results Will Impact Universities

May 9, 2022

4 min

Justin Shaw

How should we measure faculty expertise? This week the UK provides its answer to this question via its highly significant and formal (government-directed) assessment of academic research - which grades academic teams on a scale of 1* to 4* for their ability to deliver, share and create impact globally outstanding research.


This process is known as the REF (the Research Excellence Framework) - and the results will be publicly released this Thursday (12th May) with universities themselves finding out how they’ve performed in advance today (Monday 9th May). The process was last carried out 8 years ago and has been delayed by a year due to the pandemic.



Why is the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Significant?


The Research Excellence Framework steers the level of UK public funds - allocated via research councils - that will be invested in research for each academic department (or so-called “Unit of Assessment”) for the next few years. It is also a way of comparing performance against other universities that are offering similar research expertise, and of strengthening (or weakening) global research reputations.


During the next three days, UK universities will be digging into the detail of their REF gradings and the accompanying feedback. There will be some very nervous university leaders and research heads delving into why this peer-assessed review of their research has not gone as well as they expected and why their percentages in each of the four grade areas have dropped - or even been given the “unclassified” career-damaging stamp.


How are the REF Scores for Universities Determined?


The measurement process is based on three aspects:


  1. Quality of outputs (such as: publications, performances, and exhibitions),
  2. Impact beyond academia
  3. The environment that supports research


The preparation, participation, and assessment process takes a massive amount of time, attention and energy. Last time (2014) there were 1,911 submissions to review. Research teams, designated REF leaders and senior staff will have spent long hours across many months preparing their submissions and making sure they are presenting hard evidence and the best case possible to meet the above criteria at the highest possible level. There are 34 subject areas that are covered in the latest REF - and three tiers of expert panels (some with about 20 or more senior academics, international subject leaders, and research users) will have reviewed each submission and compared notes to come to decisions.


How do these Key Categories within the REF Contribute to the Rating for a University?


The Research Excellence Framework is actually an intensive and highly important approach to expert assessment. These are the key factors and their definitions (with the assigned weighting of each of the criteria in steering final grades):


  1. Outputs (60%): the quality of submitted research outputs in terms of their ‘originality, significance and rigour’, with reference to international research quality standards. This element will carry a weighting of 60 per cent in the overall outcome awarded to each submission.
  2. Impact (25%): the ‘reach and significance’ of impacts on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life that were underpinned by excellent research conducted in the submitted unit. This element carries a weighting of 25 per cent.
  3. Environment (15%): the research environment in terms of its ‘vitality and sustainability’, including the approach to enabling impact from its research, and its contribution to the vitality and sustainability of the wider discipline or research base. This element accounts for 15 per cent.


Taking a Closer Look at the Categories - Are We Focusing Enough on Research Impact?


In 2014 a formal review was carried out in order to improve and evolve the REF process which made a number of recommendations. Most notably the weighting for “impact” was increased by five percent, with “outputs” being reduced by the same percentage. This is certainly a recognition that the external contribution difference that research makes is more important - but is it enough? Should there be greater emphasis on the return on investment from a beneficiaries and user experience perspective?


Many argue that academic research should retain a strong element of ‘”blue sky” experimentation - where outright evidence of impact may take several years (even decades) and so can’t demonstrate such immediate value.


A particularly notable benefit of the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect of this in REF deadlines has allowed the extended assessment period for ‘proof of impact’ from 1 August 2013 to 31 December 2020. This is an extension from the previous end date of 31 July 2020. The extension has been put in place to enable case studies affected by, or focusing on the response to, COVID-19 to be assessed in REF 2021.


Going back to the original question: how should we measure faculty expertise? It will be interesting to monitor the views and responses of university leaders and faculty members at the end of this week as to whether they feel that - standing back from it all - this UK-centric method of measurement is the best that can be done, a neat compromise or isn’t really what we really need.


For more information on the Research Excellence Framework visit www.ref.ac.uk/


Justin Shaw

Justin is UK and Ireland Development Director for ExpertFile and Chief Higher Education Consultant at Communications Management. An authority on University strategy and communications, he has worked in and with leadership teams at UK universities for over 30 years. In his role he has advised universities on how to promote their expertise and on communications strategies related to the REF.


Connect with:
Justin Shaw

Justin Shaw

Chief Higher Education Consultant (Communications Management) and UK Development Director

Specialist in higher education, communications, reputation and marketing of academic experts

Powered by

You might also like...

Check out some other posts from ExpertFile

7 min

The Ads are Coming ! OpenAI is testing ads inside ChatGPT starting this month.

But there's a catch: You can’t just buy your way in ChatGPT will soon include “clearly labeled sponsored listings” at the bottom of AI-generated responses. And while the mock-ups don't appear all that sophisticated, it's important to focus on the bigger picture. We're about to see a new wave of 'high-intent advertising' that combines the targeting sophistication of social media with the purchase-intent clarity of search advertising. More on that in a moment. How Do ChatGPT Ads Work? Starting later this month, free users of the ChatGPT platform and those under 18 will begin receiving Ads at the bottom of their screens. First, they will see ChatGPT's answer to their question, which provides a comprehensive, relevant response that builds trust. Then they will see an ad for a sponsored product/service below. An ad that suddenly doesn't feel like a blunt interruption. It feels like a natural next step. This is premium placement. The user has already received value. They've been educated. And now there's a clear call to action (CTA) that's in context. Open AI has stated that their new Ads “support a broader effort to make powerful AI accessible to more people.” Translation: As they approach 1 billion weekly users across 171 countries using ChatGPT for free, OpenAI needs to offset its astronomical burn rate with ads. Makes sense. This New Era of Conversational Ads Will be Complicated But there's a structural difference with these new ads. OpenAI has stated that ads will only appear when they're relevant to that exact conversation. This means you can't just buy your way into ChatGPT Ads. In fact, with ChatGPT you are being selected because you're the right answer the user needs at that time. Put another way: When ChatGPT evaluates which sponsored products to show, it will favor brands with demonstrated authority on the topic. So unlike traditional paid search, where a higher bid gets you ranked in sponsored results, ChatGPT Ads will reward the brands whose content has already been recognized as authoritative by the AI model. Brands with strong organic visibility, topical expertise, and content that aligns with user intent will have a distinct competitive advantage from day one. Brands without that foundation will be paying premium rates to compete with established authorities. How ChatGPT's Ad Strategy is Set to Change Digital Marketing For years, CMOs have treated organic search and paid search as separate budget lines, often managed by different teams. I saw this firsthand, as I helped my client DoubleClick launch it’s first Ad Exchange network in the US market. Programmatic exchanges brought a new efficiency to digital ad buying. It was a very groovy time. This feels very different. Why? Because, the conventional wisdom has always been that paid search and ads drive immediate results while organic search plays the long game. In 2026, that strategy isn’t completely obsolete. But that type of thinking is about to get a lot more expensive for clients if they don't start to appreciate quality "organic" content and its ability to improve their paid advertising ROI. Now organic and paid need to get along, to get ahead. ChatGPT Ads Are Looking for Topical Authority that Experts Can Demonstrate When ChatGPT evaluates which sponsored products to show, it will favor brands with demonstrated authority on the topic. Brands won't simply be able to "buy" visibility. OpenAI in its announcements, has been explicit: ads must be relevant to the conversation. Relevance is determined by topical alignment, not budget. A brand spending millions on generic bidding will lose to a smaller competitor whose product is more precisely aligned with what the user actually asked. The ads aren't live yet. But the infrastructure supporting them is. Open AI, Google and many of the other generative search platforms are building very sophisticated systems that track topical authority and content quality signals. They're already reshaping how organic search, AI recommendations, and paid advertising work together. Topical Relevance + Expert Authority is the Path to Visibility in Search Investing in well-developed thought leadership programs generates compound returns. You get the organic search results plus an improvement in your paid search metrics in Generative AI search platforms. When done right, you build authority for AI citations, which then positions you better for ChatGPT ads. Remember, your organic traffic gains are built on authoritative content. They're built on being the answer that search engines and AI systems select. And once you've built that authority, it works everywhere—traditional search, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and soon… ChatGPT ads. What To Do Before AI Ad Networks Start to Scale The early advantage will go to brands that invest in quality content right now. Organizations that invest in expert-authored, intent-aligned content over the next six months will have more AI citation visibility from Google Overviews and similar LLM's like ChatGPT. That means more trust signals, making paid ads more effective when they run. Content that is aligned with user intent: Answers a specific question. Not tangentially, not after 2,000 words of context. The answer appears in the opening paragraph, structured for AI extraction. Includes expert perspective. Generic information that could come from anywhere doesn't differentiate you. Expert insight, original research, or proprietary frameworks do. Demonstrates topical authority. A single authoritative article matters less than a cluster of related content that shows comprehensive expertise on a topic. Is structured for scanning. Clear headings (H2, H3), bullet points, tables, Q&A blocks. This structure helps both human readers and AI systems parse meaning. Remember, the brands that get the most value out of ChatGPT Ads will be the ones that built intent-aligned content years before the ads launched. They'll have topical clusters, expert perspectives, and the authority signals that make them the natural choice for sponsorship. Questions CMO’s Should Be Asking their Teams Now to Prepare for ChatGPT Ads Q. Can I pre-purchase Chat GPT Ads? As of today, there are currently no ads in ChatGPT. Open AI has announced that they will begin internal testing ads in ChatGPT later this month for Free users in the US market. Q. Do Ads influence the answers ChatGPT gives you? What about privacy? Open AI in their release states that answers are optimized based on what's most helpful to you. Ads are always separated and clearly labeled from Answers. They also state that they keep your conversations private from advertisers and will never sell your data to advertisers. Q. How do we audit our site content to ensure we're aligned with user intent? For your top 20-30 decision-stage queries (the ones that drive revenue), here's a quick test. Does the content directly answer the question in the opening paragraph? Are you including question-and-answer formats in your content? If you're burying the answer in a 3,000-word article full of tangents, you're losing visibility in organic search, and you're already failing in ChatGPT's environment. Restructure. Q. How do we prepare for ChatGPT Advertising Opportunities? Build topical authority through content clusters. Don't publish isolated blog posts. Organize your content around core topics your audience cares about. Create a long-form hub article that comprehensively covers the topic, then develop additional linked articles that dive into sub-topics and questions. Link them together. This structure helps AI systems over time, recognize your brand as authoritative on that topic, which improves both organic rankings and AI citation rates. Q. Can we still get traction with content that is not authored by experts? Generic AI-written content won't differentiate you. Get expert voices into your content. Feature your subject-matter experts, partner with practitioners, and customers to contribute original insights, case studies, or frameworks. AI systems can detect authenticity, and original expert perspectives is now a ranking signal. This is especially critical as you prepare for ChatGPT ads. OpenAI has prioritized conversations that cite authoritative sources. Q. How does content need to be structured for citations? Implement proper schema markup and structured data. AI systems extract information by parsing content structure. If your pages include proper schema markup (FAQPage, HowTo, Review, Product schema), you're making it easier for AI to pull your content into answers. This increases citation rates, which builds authority before ChatGPT ads scale. Q. How do we allocate our organic and paid programs? Own the organic + paid intersection. For your highest-intent topics, if you have a budget, invest in both organic visibility and paid campaigns. Run ads targeting the same keywords where you rank organically. This takes up more real estate on the results page and signals authority. It also gives you direct feedback on keyword performance, messaging, and landing page effectiveness—data that informs your organic content strategy and drives more citations - a virtuous cycle. Q. What types of creative will work best in these new Ad products? Until they roll out, it's unwise to make too many predictions. The safe bet here is to prepare your team for conversational advertising. ChatGPT ads won't reward traditional ad copy. They'll reward clarity, specificity, and direct value messaging. If you're used to brand-heavy, aspirational creative, this will feel foreign. Start testing conversationally-appropriate messaging now. Short, clear, problem-focused. Test on existing paid channels and refine before ChatGPT ads launch. Our Prediction When ChatGPT ads fully launch and scale, many brands that have invested in organic visibility and content quality will start to pull away from the pack. Remember…The brands that win won't be the ones with the biggest ad budgets. They'll be the ones whose content has already proven they're the right answer. They'll be the ones users already trust, already cite, and already know. The ads are coming. Are you ready?

2 min

Why Greenland Matters: The History and Strategic Importance of the World’s Largest Island

Often viewed as remote and sparsely populated, Greenland has long played an outsized role in global strategy. Settled by Inuit peoples for thousands of years, Greenland later became part of the Danish realm in the 18th century and today exists as an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Its location—bridging North America and Europe—has consistently drawn the attention of major powers, especially during moments of geopolitical tension. That attention intensified during the Cold War, when Greenland became a critical asset in Arctic defense. The United States established military installations on the island, most notably what is now known as Pituffik Space Base, to support missile warning systems and transatlantic defense. Greenland’s position along the shortest air and missile routes between North America and Russia made it indispensable to early-warning networks—and that strategic logic has not faded with time. Today, Greenland’s importance is growing rather than shrinking. Climate change is reshaping the Arctic, opening new shipping routes and increasing access to natural resources such as rare earth minerals, hydrocarbons, and freshwater reserves locked in ice. These developments have renewed global interest in Greenland from NATO allies and rival powers alike, as control over Arctic infrastructure, data, and mobility becomes central to economic and security planning. At the same time, Greenland’s own political future—balancing autonomy, Indigenous priorities, and external pressure—adds another layer of complexity. Greenland’s story is ultimately one of geography shaping history. What once made the island strategically valuable for defense now places it at the center of debates about climate, security, energy, and sovereignty in the 21st century. As Arctic competition accelerates, Greenland is no longer a peripheral actor—it is a focal point where global interests converge. Journalists covering geopolitics, Arctic security, climate change, Indigenous governance, or global resource competition are encouraged to connect with experts who study Greenland’s past and its evolving strategic role. Expert insight can help explain why this vast island continues to matter—and why it is likely to play an even larger role in the years ahead. Our experts can help! Connect with more experts here: www.expertfile.com

2 min

Power, Politics, and Petroleum: The Story of Venezuela

After gaining independence from Spain in the early 19th century under the leadership of Simón Bolívar, the country spent much of the next century marked by political instability and military rule. Everything changed in the early 20th century with the discovery of vast oil reserves, which rapidly transformed Venezuela into one of the world’s leading petroleum exporters and shifted power toward a centralized state funded almost entirely by oil revenue. By the mid-20th century, oil had become both Venezuela’s greatest asset and its greatest vulnerability. Democratic governments that emerged after 1958 used oil income to expand social programs and infrastructure, but also built an economy dangerously dependent on a single commodity. When oil prices fell in the 1980s and 1990s, economic inequality and public frustration surged, creating the conditions that brought Hugo Chávez to power in 1999. Chávez reoriented the political system around a state-controlled oil sector, using petroleum revenues to fund social initiatives while consolidating political authority and weakening independent institutions. Under Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, oil remained the backbone of the state—but declining production, corruption, and mismanagement hollowed out the industry itself. As oil revenues collapsed, so did public services, democratic norms, and economic stability. Venezuela’s history illustrates a central paradox: immense natural wealth paired with fragile governance. Control of oil has repeatedly shaped political power, domestic policy, and Venezuela’s relationship with the world—making energy inseparable from the country’s political story. Journalists covering Venezuela, Latin American politics, energy markets, or resource-driven economies are encouraged to connect with experts who can provide historical context, explain the role of oil in shaping political outcomes, and assess how Venezuela’s past continues to influence its uncertain future. Our experts can help! Connect with more experts here: www.expertfile.com

View all posts
Powered by