Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of Professor David Miller's research at Bristol University on that university's ratings under the Research Excellence Framework.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) assesses the quality of research from the submissions of UK higher education institutions, not individuals. The primary outcome of the REF is an overall quality profile for each submission, which will show the proportions of research activity judged to meet each of four starred quality levels. Alongside the quality profile, the funding bodies will publish the output, impact and environment sub-profiles that were combined to produce the overall quality profile for each submission. The HE funding bodies do not publish the scores for individual outputs or impact case studies. REF results inform future Quality-related (QR) research funding allocations from HE funding bodies, which are, also awarded at institutional level by the HE funding bodies, and not to individual researchers.

HE providers are independent and autonomous organisations, responsible for the management of their own affairs and for meeting their duties under the law, including those relating to freedom of expression and equalities. All HE providers should discharge their responsibilities fully and have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law, to investigate and swiftly address hate crime, including any antisemitic incidents that are reported.

Grant funding provided by HE Funding bodies, UK Research & Innovation and Office for Students is all subject to terms and conditions of funding set by the funder with which providers must comply. If a provider does not meet these, funding can be withdrawn or reclaimed by the relevant funder. For research grant funding this includes expectations concerning academic rigour, research integrity, open research, etc.