Opinion Learning & Teaching

Reassessing the essay: Relevance, realism, and resilience in the age of AI

Given how much HE is changing with more focus on vocational relevance, widening participation, and technological disruption, is the traditional essay still pulling its weight?

30th October 2025
News

Consultation on amending the REF 2021 timeline: our response

15th May 2020

The Chartered ABS has responded to Research England’s initial survey on the possible options to revise the timeline for submissions to REF 2021 in light of the disruption caused by Covid-19.

The Chartered ABS believes that there should remain a single deadline for all elements of providers’ submissions but that it should be extended to 31 March 2021. A single deadline will be easier to manage and preparations are already well advanced at this point in the REF cycle. For impact evidence we advocate that 31 July 2020 is kept in place as the end of the assessment period, but there should be a case-by-case mitigation route for individual case studies that have been delayed by Covid-19 past this point.

You can read our full response here.