Research Workload Allocation Guidance

This guidance describes the Research Workload Allocation (RWA) process that includes the decision making related to Significant Responsibility for Research (SIGRES), an annual HESA record requirement, as well the designation of Researcher Development (RD) status. This guidance describes the processes undertaken, including staff eligibility, mechanisms and decision making, and outcomes.

The University uses the RWA process to assign staff time to conduct independent research. This process has been in development for some years. It has been run across all five Faculties for the last two years to develop consistency and transparency. As we move to two Faculties, we are providing standardised guidance to help the organisational transformation effectively and efficiently include our annual requirement to assess RWA. The RWA process is a positive institutional mechanism to support staff in their research and knowledge exchange ambitions. By its nature it is limited to assessing data already produced but it affects workload allocation in the next academic year.

The outcome of the RWA in the two Faculties is that staff will be assigned one of the following conditions.

  • Time to conduct independent research in one of three ‘letter-coded’ statuses:
    • 160 hours per academic year (status A)
    • 120 hours per academic year (status B)
    • 80 hours per academic year (status C)
  • Time to conduct research development work towards independent activity in one of two coded statuses:
    • RDN – a new member of staff (within 3 years since first academic appointment) thus providing a consistent level of support to early career researchers (80 hours)
    • RDP – a progressing member of staff (not meeting RDN criteria) who has used staff development and formal review to identity a research development plan likely to lead to independent research outputs (80 hours).
  • Time to engage in scholarly activity to support delivery and development of curriculum content, assessment, or other student experiences, such as Research Informed Teaching (25 hours).

Please note:
For staff within the RDN ‘time window’ the A, B, C status will take precedence over RDN if data indicates they are conducting independent research.

Staff who are assigned a RWA of A, B, or C status are deemed to be independent researchers aligned with a research group, Centre, or Institute and are thus determined to have ‘Significant Responsibility for Research’ (SIGRES). SIGRES is formal record in our annual staff Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data return. Staff can be aligned with multiple Groups, Centres and Institutes, including pan-university Institutes, but a ‘home’ Group, Centre or Institute will likely align with their area of subject expertise.

Eligibility

All staff who are employed on Teaching and Research or Research-only contracts are eligible for consideration to be allocated an RWA status.

The determination of SIGRES status, within the annual RWA process, recognises that these staff are eligible and expected to contribute as part of the staff submission to the Research Excellence Framework 2029 (REF 2029) exercise.

The University follows Research England’s definition of an independent researcher. An independent researcher is 'an individual who undertakes self-directed research, rather than carrying out another individual’s research programme'. The University assumes that staff undertaking any form of Doctoral study are not yet fully independent. This is due to the directed nature of supervision and support. Staff undertaking Doctoral-level study will receive workload allocation to support this important staff development. For those researchers on research-only contracts the ability to determine independence of activity is based on a combination of the Research England indicators to assess independence. These are:

  • leading or acting as principal investigator or equivalent on externally funded research
  • acting as co-investigator on an externally funded research project (disciplines returning to REF 2029 Main Panels C and D only)
  • holding an independently won, competitively awarded fellowship where research independence is a requirement
  • leading a research group or a substantial or specialised work package
  • having significant input into the design, conduct, and interpretation of research
  • having membership of a Research Centre, Institute, or Group

The University wishes to promote the production of research outputs derived from independent research. Accordingly, the RWA process sets its baseline expectation through a single standard that encapsulates indicators 4(i) to (vi). It is: since 1 January in the calendar year four years prior to the process occurring, the staff member must have produced research output(s) of a quality that would reasonably be expected to form part of a submission to the REF exercise.

The research outputs data to be assessed in the RWA process will be collected from the University’s Symplectic Elements database. Outputs not recorded in this database will not be considered. Staff may record outputs from employment at other Higher Education Institutions provided their publication falls within the date range. Staff will receive instructions to update their Symplectic Elements records before the data capture process begins. To ensure staff have updated their Symplectic Elements records appropriately, they will receive a copy of the captured data before the formal RWA decision-making process begins.

The outputs cannot have been published before 1 January in the relevant window of assessment. Their composition could have started before that date, and they can reference research activities conducted before that date (such as data collection, laboratory experiments, or fieldwork).

Where an output is an artwork or similar, and composition began before the relevant 1 January deadline, the senior staff leading the process will determine when its status changed from composition to published. They may look at the data of first performance or exhibition to make this determination.

If the senior staff leading the process are unclear on whether the output represents research or professional practice, they can request a statement of up to 100 words from the staff member to clarify its status. The staff member is encouraged to consider the Frascati Manual’s definition of research and experimental development: ‘Research and experimental development (R&D) comprise creative and systematic work undertake in order to increase the stock of knowledge – including knowledge of humankind, culture and society – and to devise new applications of available knowledge’ (OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) (2002). Frascati Manual. Proposed Standard Practise for Surveys on Research and Experimental Development, p. 44).

Where a decision is required in multiple-authored research outputs, staff may be asked to provide a statement clarifying their role in the authorship.

Staff may submit notification of consideration of specific research outputs as ‘substantial’ or ‘double-weighted’. When they do so, the staff member will have to provide a statement of up to 100 words explaining why the research output is to be double-weighted. Statements will typically describe the ambition, complexity, or difficulty of the research and its interpretation. They will email this statement to the School Director and Unit of Assessment Lead. The University does not expect that journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings will normally embody double-weighted research outputs.

Timeline

The process timeline is designed to standardise the timing of outcomes for staff while enabling operational flexibility. In a typical year, it aims to have confirmed decisions ready for communication in April.

Local School and Faculty administrators will typically collect relevant data in the period December to February ahead of the April decision-making meeting. The data include Symplectic research output records and research grant data from LJMU finance systems. The administrators will confirm these data with academic staff in the period February to March and request any voluntary contextual information from the academic staff. In February to April, each School Director and the relevant Unit of Assessment Leads will develop the School’s criteria for differentiating between RWA statuses. Academic staff will return confirmation of their data and supply additional contextual data in March.

The meetings to determine statuses will typically happen in early April. Over the course of April, the decisions will be checked, recorded, and then communicated to academic staff.

Research Workload Allocation (RWA) Process

The RWA process is an annual staff time allocation process. It occurs at School and Faculty level. It is led by the Faculty PVC, School Directors, REF Unit of Assessment Leads and other relevant staff as appropriate.

Within the RWA meeting the Faculty PVC, School Directors and Unit of Assessment Leads as well as any other relevant staff at the meeting will review individual staff members’ research outputs, income generation through grant applications and capture, project leadership, and other relevant professional activities to determine their appropriate status. The review will be based on the four years prior to the review and can include contextual statements. The review period will roll forward each year, so a review one year later will have three years’ overlap with the review conducted in the previous year.

The criteria for each status are as follows.

  • RWA status C. The staff member has met the baseline standard: they have shown the ability and appropriate planning to contribute to their primary research field through the production of research output(s) of a quality that would merit submission to a REF exercise.
  • RWA status B. The staff member has shown the ability and appropriate planning to pursue a programme of research that will advance their primary research field. This will be through their production of research outputs and their engagement with external Research and Knowledge Exchange grant and project applications to undertake independent research.
  • RWA status A. The staff member has shown the ability and appropriate planning to develop a substantial programme of research, which will typically include field-leading research outputs, significant external funding, and the leadership of dependent researchers. This may be determined as being able to fund their research team through an external funding source.

The criteria assessed will be reviewed relative to each academic discipline. At the start of data collection for the RWA process, each School Director and the relevant Unit of Assessment Leads will develop the School’s criteria for differentiation between C and B status as well as B and A status based on quality and volume of research outputs and external income capture. The criteria will reflect Liverpool John Moores University’s status as a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment.

Where multiple Schools administer a discipline, the School Directors and Unit of Assessment Leads will collaborate to standardise their consistent approach to RWA assessment. Each discipline area will have consistent and agreed criteria for differentiating B from C and A from B.

School Directors and Unit of Assessment Leads will share their baseline criteria for visibility between Schools within their Faculty. The School Directors will also email the baselines to the Head of Research Excellence and Research Strategy no later than two weeks before the RWA meeting. The Head of Research Excellence and Research Strategy will collect them into a PDF document to be time-stamped and saved for potential future audit.

The external grant capture data will be provided by Finance. The Finance directorate can only collate data to the end of the last calendar year. School administration will send these data to all RWA process entrants at the start of the data collection process. Past financial activity will be assessed based on the value of in-year spend per financial year at Liverpool John Moores University, not the total awarded value of the grant.

Leadership of a contract research project will be counted as professional activity, not as external grant capture.

School administrators will provide all staff with details of the research outputs and external grant data that they have collected. They will also provide live grant application data, accessed through LJMU financial reporting systems.

Staff can comment on all the data pertinent to themselves that will be assessed at the RWA meeting. Staff may provide narrative contextual information if relevant. The comments can include details of research outputs, of external funding captured prior to arrival at LJMU (if within time scope) that may not yet be recorded on LJMU systems, of leadership activity, and of further relevance to the process.

Schools may also provide contextual information where a member of staff is conducting developmental research activity and working towards research outputs or grant capture and are thus to be considered for RDP status.

Staff may provide contextual information about personal circumstances that have affected or do affect their ability to conduct research and scholarly activity in the specific assessment time window. The information can be ‘high level’ (such as ‘maternity leave’ or ‘extended sickness absence’) and will be treated in the strictest confidence. The information is provided voluntarily.

Researcher Development (RD) Status Process

Where an RWA status is not appropriate, staff will be assessed for an RD status.

RD awards focus on the consistent support of new staff (including early career researchers) and continuing staff within the broader process of staff review and development. Each status provides an allowance of hours of staff time per annum for research activities. The allowances have different conditions associated with them.

RD status has two variations.

  1. Researcher Development-New Starter (RD-N) applies for all staff who are within their first 3 years of joining the University on their first Teaching and Research contract on a minimum of 0.2FTE. It is an allowance of 80 hours per annum, proportionate to FTE. It lasts for three years.
  2. Researcher Development-Progression (RD-P) applies for all staff who are not allocated an RWA status, who are not within the RD-N time-window, but who are anticipated to conduct independent research in the future based on informed and developmental professional review and development discussion. It is an allowance of 80 hours per annum, proportionate to FTE. The staff member will be required to discuss and plan with their line manager how they will use the time to support their development as a researcher. The status will be renewed annually for up to three years, based on progress toward achieving independent research. After three years, renewal will normally then stop, and it is expected the staff member should progress to an RWA status. Staff on RD-P who are eligible to move to RWA C, B, or A will do so at the earliest opportunity.

Where the two RD options are not appropriate, the panel will award a Scholarship status.

Scholarship(s) applies for all staff who are not anticipated to conduct independent research in the future. It is an allowance of 25 hours per annum, proportionate to FTE. The time allowance is for scholarly activities falling outside the staff member’s teaching and administrative workload, for instance staying abreast of new scholarly developments to advance their research-informed teaching practice. The status lasts for three years. It may be renewed. It does not carry SIGRES status.

Confirmation Procedure

The Faculty Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange (ADR) or equivalent will convene a sub-group of the Faculty Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee (FRKEC) or its dedicated equivalent to meet to assess the provisional RWA and RD statuses.

The Faculty PVC, School Directors, Unit of Assessment Leads, and other staff on Faculty RWA panels will use their best judgment on the totality of information provided to assign a provisional RWA status (including RD or Scholarship designation).

The convened sub-group will be constituted to avoid gender imbalance and to ensure a fair representation of the research fields included in the School and Faculty.

The Faculty ADR will open the sub-group meeting by sharing all the baseline criteria information provided by School Directors and Unit of Assessment Leads. This is to ensure members understand the criteria they are reviewing against to maintain consistency. The sub-group will then review all provisional RWA, RD, and Scholarship statuses among the Faculty’s staff to ensure all information (contextual and otherwise) has been consistently considered.

To support feedback and consistency, where there is debate on an individual’s RWA status, the ADR and committee with reach a majority decision and will record the reasons for this decision in the meeting. The record empowers transparency and underpins any potential audit.

Outcomes and Communications

A staff member with an RWA status will be considered to have SIGRES and so will be eligible for return to REF 2029. The nature of the RWA status decision (the letter allocated) does not influence the volume of research outputs they might contribute to the REF 2029 submission.

All staff RWA will be calculated in hours relevant to the FTE of their contract.

Once statuses are confirmed by the FRKEC sub-group, the Faculty and School administrators will record the RWA, RD, and Scholarship status decisions in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is provided by Research and Innovation Services as a template. The administrators will save the spreadsheet in both Excel and PDF format. They will date-stamp the PDF to serve in a potential audit.

School Directors will inform staff of the confirmed RWA, RD, or Scholarship statuses within three weeks of the FRKEC sub-group meeting. They will use a standard letter for this purpose. They will send the letter as an e-mail attachment to the entrant’s Liverpool John Moores University e-mail account.

The letter will confirm that an RWA status also accords SIGRES status. It will confirm that the degree of RWA status does not influence the degree of contribution the staff member will make to the REF 2029 exercise.

Appeals over allocated RWA, RD, or Scholarship status are heard by the ADR and relevant School Director. Where the appeal is related to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity, the ADR and School Director will be joined by a member of the University’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity team. Appellants may be accompanied by an advisor (such as a colleague or a trades union representative).

This guidance was published 20 January 2025.