We are pleased to announce that the University REF submission was returned on Tuesday 26 November shortly after 5.00 pm following a sterling effort made by REF Coordinators, Heads of Departments, departmental administrators and the central REF Operations Team. Chair of the REF Executive Steering Group Tim Jones said "The preparation of the University’s REF return has taken over 18 month and I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the process on behalf of the Senior Management Team."

The assessment of submissions begins in early January and the Funding Councils’ audit and assurance work will commence during December. The REF outcome is expected to inform the allocation of the Higher Education Funding Council England’s annual £1.5 billion block grant allocation for research for six years from 2015/16 and will also be used by the national press to rank UK universities research quality. The results of the assessment will be announced in December 2014.