REF Sub-panel 23: Meeting 2 30 January 2014 Grand Connaught Rooms, London Minutes Present: Sara Arber Chetan Bhatt Ben Bowling Eamonn Carrabine Nickie Charles Graham Crow Mary Daly (deputy chair) Sara Delamont Tia DeNora Barbara Doig Deborah McClean (adviser) Linda McKie Nikolas Rose Mike Savage John Scott (chair) William Solesbury John Solomos Liz Stanley John Thompson Sylvia Walby Sandra Walklate Alan Warde Gillian Weale (secretary) Nira Yuval-Davies Apologies: There were no apologies. 1. Introduction and competence to do business 1.1. The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Ben Bowling, a member shared with SP20: Law, and SP22: Social Work and Social Policy, to ensure consistency in the assessment of outputs submitted to all three panels in the field of criminology. The user members had not received papers for the meeting and it was agreed that the secretary would ensure that the email lists included all members of the sub-panel. 1.2. The chair reminded members of the confidential nature of the sub-panel’s business which should not be discussed outside the membership. 1.3. In the light of the attendance, the sub-panel confirmed its competence to do business. 2. Conflicts of interest 2.1. The sub-panel reviewed the register of their declared major conflicts of interest. One member raised an additional major conflict which would be updated via the PMW. All members were reminded to keep their major conflicts of interest up to date through the PMW, 2.2. The sub-panel discussed some types of minor conflict, including cases where a co-author of an output was a colleague of a panel member, and cases where a submitted member of staff was the former PhD student of a panel member. Members were encouraged to report any possible minor conflicts of interest via webmail to the chair, who would decide how to handle each case, with a copy to the secretary for the record. 3. Audit 3.1. The panel’s attention was drawn to paper SP23.2.2 which outlined the procedures for audit. Audit queries could be raised by sub-panel members throughout the assessment phase in relation to outputs, where, for example, there was concern about the contribution made on a co-authored output. 3.2. Panel members were reminded of the guidance for dealing with potential overlap, which could be found in paragraphs 40-41 of Section C2 in the ‘panel criteria’ document. 3.3. The arrangements for auditing impact case studies were different, in that sub- panel members would be asked to identify case studies which were candidates for audit. To this end, the chair requested that sub-panel members scan their impact allocation, once this was available, with a view to sending details of case studies requiring audit to the secretary, by the next meeting on 12 March. To help, the secretary would circulate further guidance on what was expected in impact case studies, for example that the underpinning research should be of minimum 2* quality. Panel members would be looking for sufficient evidence of this within the case study itself, and would not be required to follow up and read the references to the underpinning research. 4. Output calibration 4.1. The chair introduced the calibration exercise, referring to paragraphs 68-71 of ‘Panel Criteria’ and the extract of the minutes of the Main Panel C meeting on 23 January which had been circulated as paper SP23.2.5. The discussions in Main Panel C had been very useful and the chair advised members to refer back to the points raised in these minutes in the course of their assessment. 4.2. Eight outputs had been selected for the calibration exercise from submissions to UoA23, but only seven were discussed, as it had been found that the eighth output had been submitted with an incorrect pdf, and was therefore subject to an audit query. Outputs had been identified to avoid major conflicts of interest, and with a view to sampling a reasonably representative range of what had been submitted. In addition, one output had been selected from submissions to UoA22: Social Work and Social Policy. A separate exercise had been undertaken by the chairs of SP20, SP22 and SP23, drawing on readings of a selection of outputs in the field of criminology submitted to all three of these UoAs. 4.3. Sub-panel academic members had read all these outputs in advance of the meeting and scored them on a U-4 scale. The scores returned were presented in the meeting, and showed considerable variation. The chair invited members to discuss each of the outputs in turn, focussing on the reasons for coming to a particular grade, in relation to the criteria. 4.4. It was important that this sub-panel came to its own view of outputs in the field of criminology, in recognition of the fact that some institutions had chosen to submit staff and outputs to UoA23, rather than UoA20 or UoA22. The criminology calibration exercise had shown much lower levels of variation in scoring between members of different sub-panels, and throughout the course of the assessment, Main Panel C would be monitoring the sub-panels’ work for consistency. 4.5. By extension, and in accordance with paragraph 4.7 of the Main Panel C minutes, an output should be judged in terms of whether or not it made sense to the audience it was intended for. The unit of assessment descriptor for Sociology was wide, and sub-panel members should bear this in mind when thinking about possible cross-referrals to other sub-panels, which should only be made when there was no competence to assess an output within the sub-panel. Experience of the Main Panel C calibration exercise was that it was possible to come to an appropriate assessment of an output even when this output was not squarely within the assessor’s field. 4.6. In discussion of the calibration outputs, the following general points emerged: 4.6.1. Outputs on the borderline between star ratings often demonstrated strengths in one or two of the three criteria but were less strong on the third. The sub-panel discussed several examples where this was the case and agreed that it was important to be alert to the effects of combining the three equally-weighted criteria. 4.6.2. Sub-panel members needed to assess the outputs as they stood, and should not be exploring publications by the same author which had not been submitted to REF2014. 4.6.3. The question of whether or not the author achieved the aims set out at the start of the output could affect the level of rigour reached. However, the small size of datasets and writing from personal experience should not necessarily lead to a judgement that the output lacked rigour. 4.6.4. In cases where the questions raised or conclusions reached in an output had been superseded by events within the REF2014 assessment period, the output should be judged on the basis of its significance at the time of its writing. 4.6.5. In the case of potential candidates for cross-referral, sub-panel members were advised to discuss these with their co-reader, and then with the chair. Where no other member of the sub-panel was competent to assess the output, it would be cross-referred. 4.6.6. The journal in which an output had been published was irrelevant to the assessment of its quality, which should be on the basis solely of the published criteria. 4.6.7. Although half-scores were available for use, it was recommended that assessors use whole number scores when assessing outputs. Half-scores were mostly to be used when assessing impact. 4.7. The chair explained that Main Panel C would be able to see the scoring of outputs in real time during the assessment phase, in order to take an overview of sub- panels’ progress and review calibration if necessary. 5. Output allocation arrangements 5.1. The chair had completed the output allocation and unlocked personal spreadsheets for sub-panel members and output assessors. However, the recent declaration of a further major conflict of interest would necessitate a certain amount of re-distribution. Sub-panel members would be informed when this had taken place so that they could generate fresh versions of their personal spreadsheets. 5.2. Each output had been allocated for assessment by two panellists. It was recommended that each panellist score independently initially, and then discuss cases, by phone or webmail, where the scores had diverged. A report showing scoring differences could be run by the secretary at any time. It was agreed to circulate a list of phone and Skype numbers to allow panellists to contact each other for these bilateral discussions. 5.3. There would be some discussion of how to assess cases made for double- weighting at the next Main Panel C meeting on 6 March, so further guidance in the light of this would be issued at the sub-panel’s next meeting. 5.4. Several sub-panel members reported severe delays in receiving hard copies of outputs from the warehouse, and it was agreed that the secretary would raise this as a matter of serious concern with the REF team. 6. IT systems briefing 6.1. The adviser gave a short briefing on how to use the REF IT systems. Members could request further help from her or the secretary or from the REF admin team. 7. Project plan and future meetings 7.1 The sub-panel reviewed the project plan which outlined what work would be done at each meeting, and the preparation required between meetings.