This post is about the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. If you are a UK academic who undertakes research in Library and Information Management (as covered in Unit of Assessment 34), this is for you.

Colleagues will be aware that the draft Guidance on submissions and Panel criteria and working methods for REF 2021 were issued to the wider research community for consultation at the end of July 2018.

A number of other documents were also issued:

• Draft guidance on codes of practice (separated out from the Guidance on submissions for ease of review)
• Guidance to panels
• Equality briefing for REF panels

The Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), Research England, and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) are currently seeking views from subject communities on the content of these files in a consultation period that ends at noon on 15^th October. Consultation responses are invited from any higher education institution, association, organisation or individual with an interest in the conduct, quality, funding or use of research.

The British Association for Information and Library Education and Research (BAILER) intends to make an online response to the REF consultation. With this in mind, a meeting has been arranged to bring together representatives from the BAILER institutions to discuss the documents and formulate a BAILER response to their contents.

This meeting will take place on 10:00-12:30pm, Wednesday 26^th September at the  headquarters of Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE. I will be at this meeting, as will Professor David Bawden, who (like me) is serving on the panel for REF 2021 Unit of Assessment 34 (Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management).

As BAILER Chair, Professor Vesna Brujic-Okretic of Kingston University will be chairing this meeting. Last month Vesna emailed the heads of the BAILER member departments/schools to invite a representative from each of its members to participate in the meeting and contribute to the BAILER response to the consultation. Participation at this meeting may also be useful to us all as we work on the preparations for our REF submissions. If you would like to attend the meeting in London on Wednesday 26th September as the rep for your institution, please contact Vesna by email at vesna@kingston.ac.uk.