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<div class="" style="word-wrap:break-word; line-break:after-white-space">Dear Colleagues,
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<div class="">I would be grateful if you could take the following actions at some stage over the next month. </div>
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<div class="">(1) Log on to Pure and propose any new high quality/impact outputs for REF 2021 that you may have recently published, or propose any others that you have published in the REF period (Jan 2014 onwards) that you now think meet this criterion (especially
if you are a newer member of staff).</div>
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<div class="">(2) Check the grades that your earlier papers have been given. </div>
<div class="">We inform our output grading using a formula. Our formula is a accurate, in that it gives us a
<i class="">very</i> good approximation to the distribution of outputs returned by REF (based on a sample of perhaps 500 physics outputs over two previous research assessment exercises), but not precise, in that it is probably only right for an individual paper
to plus or minus half a star rating. </div>
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<div class="">If you believe that one of your papers has been incorrectly graded (up or down) I invite you to contact me. As REF coordinator I want to make sure that we have the best outputs in the submission. It is likely that our submission (~120 outputs)
will contain almost exclusively 3* and 4* outputs. Not all outputs graded 3* will be included as we have more than we need. I care if you have a 4* output that has been graded 3*, or a 3* that has been graded 2*. </div>
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<div class="">You should be able to justify, on the basis of originality, significance and rigour, that the output
<span class="" style="font-style:normal">definitively</span> meets (i.e. it will be obvious to the REF panel) one of the criteria in the pdf.</div>
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<div class="">I don’t promise that we will change the grade that we give your output, but I do promise to give it proper consideration, in consultation with others.</div>
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<div class="">Best Regards</div>
<div class="">John</div>
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<div>Professor John Jeffers<br class="">
Department of Physics<br class="">
University of Strathclyde<br class="">
<a href="mailto:john.jeffers@strath.ac.uk" class="">john.jeffers@strath.ac.uk</a><br class="">
0141 552 3457</div>
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