Libraries as research enablers: A content analysis of research excellence framework environment statements

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) assesses the research quality of UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). One element of this assessment, the environment statement, allows discipline-specific Units of Assessment (UoAs) to detail aspects of their HEIs wider research environment. As academic libraries play a crucial role in facilitating research, it would be expected that recognition of this would be acknowledged within these environment statements. To test this, a content analysis of all 3769 environment statements submitted to REF2014 and REF2021 was conducted. It found that only 63.4 % of UoAs mentioned the library in their environment statements. Moreover, environment statements in non-STEM disciplines were approximately twice as likely to mention the library than those in STEM disciplines. Interestingly, while the acknowledgment of ‘traditional’ support services remained consistent over time, acknowledgement of ‘non-traditional’ services (e.g., open research support, and research data services) increased significantly between REF2014 and REF2021 across all disciplines. Therefore, while academic libraries are often recognised by their HEIs as contributing to the institutional research environment, this is by no means universal. Instead, recognition depended on discipline and has shifted over time. These findings have important implications for understanding and prioritising library research support.