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REF UOA 2014 Category to Web of Science Category Mapping 2012

Scheme Scope

The UK 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Units of Assessment (UoA) category scheme is based on the 2014 REF conducted out of the UK. The REF UoA fall into thirty (36) units of assessment. Details on the individual units can be found here: http://www.ref.ac.uk/panels/unitsofassessment/. This categorization scheme is based on the work done to define the UK 2008 RAE Units of Assessment Scheme.

Submissions to the REF are made across 36 units of assessment, and of the thirty-six (36) REF UoA, data for thirty-five (35) have been calculated; this is consistent with the approach for the RAE UoA 2008 data. (For the RAE UoA scheme, for reasons of under-representation in publication history or overlap issues, categories not included at all in Global Comparisons are 5 - Other Laboratory Based Clinical Subjects and 8 - Primary Care and Other Community Based Clinical Subjects. For the REF UoA scheme, only 15 - General Engineering has been excluded due to potential ambiguity and overlap.)

All Web of Science (WoS) subject areas are represented except “RO – Multidisciplinary Sciences.”

Scheme Type

Category mapping where UoA categories are mapped to current WoS subject areas (WoS subject areas current as of 31 December 2012). WoS subject areas can be assigned multiple UoA codes and UoA codes sets can be comprised of more than one WoS subject areas.

Method

The 2014 Research Assessment Exercise (REF) is undertaken by the four UK higher education funding bodies and presents a “new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).  It will replace the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and will be completed in 2014.”

Submissions to the REF are made across 36 units of assessment, and the InCites Global Comparisons categorization scheme has been produced using the mapping for the Global Comparisons category scheme REA UoA 2008 and this document, published to the REF2014 website. The results of the mapping were reviewed for consistency between the scope notes of the WoS subject area and the units of assessment descriptors in Section A1 herein.

Of the thirty-six (36) REF UoA, data for thirty-five (35) have been calculated; this is consistent with the approach for the RAE UoA data. (For the RAE UoA 2008 scheme, for reasons of under-representation in publication history or overlap issues, categories not included at all in Global Comparisons are 5 - Other Laboratory Based Clinical Subjects and 8 - Primary Care and Other Community Based Clinical Subjects. For the UoA 2014 scheme, only 15 - General Engineering has been excluded due to potential ambiguity and overlap.)

The mapping of WoS subject area to REF UoA must be reviewed each year since WoS subject areas may change from one year to the next.