Am I REF-able? This question plagues UK-based academics, whether they are permanently employed or stringing together temporary posts. The REF – the Research Excellence Framework – is the much discussed (and widely hated) UK-wide research assessment exercise, which judges the ‘excellence’ of academic research. The REF results carry prestige and determine research funding for departments and universities. However, the REF has become more than just an audit process: it has produced a powerful discourse around who or what is ‘REF-able’, shaping the way individual academics and their work are judged as valuable or not. Being perceived as REF-able is incredibly important due to the impact on the hiring, firing, and promotion of individual academics and the funding and staffing of departments and research centres. However, REF-ability is an amorphous concept, mixing the formal eligibility criteria of the official REF process with broader value judgements about what will score highly and therefore bring higher star ratings in the REF results and associated funding and prestige. The REF process and notions of REF-ability are deeply mythologised, with (mis)understandings circulating among academics, professional services staff, and university management. This chapter examines the REF as both an official audit process and a discursive framework used to judge the value of academics and their research.

Through a comparison of the official REF 2014 and 2021 guidance and interviews with physicists responsible for REF 2021 submissions, I show how the REF works in practice.