Consultation on the REF 2029 Code of Practice
The University has concluded a period of consultation on its REF 2029 Code of Practice, including the appendices. The consultation ran from 17 November 2025 to 23 January 2026. The University is now reviewing responses to the consultation and preparing to submit its proposed Code of Practice for review by REF.
The consultation webpage is preserved below as a record of the process.
Details of the Consultation Period
A REF 2029 Code of Practice is a set of guidelines and procedures that a Higher Education Institute develops and implements to make decisions on its submission to the exercise. Higher education institutions are required to have an approved Code of Practice to participate in REF 2029.
Each Code of Practice will confirm how the institution:
- identifies eligible staff contracts to contribute to the Volume Measure
- allocates staff contracts to Units of Assessment (UoAs)
- selects research outputs for submission
On 10 December 2025, REF published the complete initial guidance for REF 2029.
An institution’s Code of Practice needs to set out how the institution has prepared decision-making guidelines and procedures that embed diversity and equality under the Public Sector Equality Duty. Each Code is accompanied by a forward-looking Equality Impact Assessment, prepared by the institution and provided as an appendix as outlined in REF’s guidance on the Codes of Practice.
The LJMU REF 2029 Code of Practice was provided on this website for open consultation by LJMU staff. Staff could provide direct comments to the email address REF2029@LJMU.ac.uk.
Staff could download the Consultation Draft in PDF format.
Open consultation activities
Open workshop sessions were available on:
- Wednesday 10 December 2025, 12pm to 1pm (Tithebarn Building, room G.09)
- Wednesday 17 December 2025, 11am to 12pm (Tithebarn Building, room 1.22)
- Wednesday 14 January 2026, 11am to 12pm (John Lennon Art and Design Building, room G.23)
These sessions were open for all LJMU staff to ask questions and provide direct comments.
Email addresses
Staff could supply direct comments on the LJMU REF 2029 Code of Practice to the email address REF2029@LJMU.ac.uk. Staff did not need to have attended an open workshop to submit comments by email.
During the open consultation, the email inbox was monitored by staff from the Executive Leadership Team, Research and Innovation Services, and the Diversity and Inclusion Team. Staff who wanted to send comments anonymously could do so by having the Diversity and Inclusion Team send them. Staff could speak to Team members directly or write to REF2029equality@LJMU.ac.uk. The Diversity and Inclusion Team would then send the comments to REF2029@LJMU.ac.uk. If staff preferred, the university also supplied an anonymous web portal using Microsoft Forms.
Comments submitted through the anonymous routes were not identified by name, job, or protected characteristic in the post-consultation review unless the comment author chose to include this information in the comment.