Redefining the (academic) author: investigating the Research Excellence Framework and teacher education research

This short communication presents the preliminary outcomes of an ongoing project exploring how initial teacher education research features in the UK’s 5–7 yearly national research assessment exercise, Research Excellence Framework (REF). Most recently, REF has reported in 2014 and 2021. Using a novel sampling method and analytic approach, we found that for REF2014, just 5.5% of outputs submitted by our sample of higher education institutions (HEIs) had a focus on initial teacher education (pre-service). A similar analysis of the same sample of HEIs for the REF2021 showed that, at 5.7%, this proportion was virtually unchanged. The consequences of this for a research-informed profession are discussed.