REF, TEF, and KEF; and the “Research-Informed” Teaching and Co-Production Traditions in Local History: Analysing Provincial Newspapers

ABSTRACT In the present universities are facing the introduction of a revised Research Excellence Framework, the extension of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework to subject-level assessment, and the emergence of a Knowledge Exchange Framework. Against this background are particular interests in, or imperatives surrounding, the development of research-informed activity involving undergraduate students, and in university public engagement. The practice of local history has a long and proud tradition of internally and externally collaborative and enquiry-led co-production in higher education and more broadly, and is now a fitting reference point and a timely source of inspiration. This research discusses the development of, and relationships between, REF, TEF and KEF, the place of research-informed teaching, and the contemporary significance of local history. The study also reports on some of the results of a student-engagement activity involving the indexing, analysis and interpretation of a provincial newspaper, for Ilfracombe, in Devon. Such a choice of primary source is particularly apt, not least because its demanding material format invites group reading and collective scrutiny. In addition, provincial-press publications yield and test knowledge of what the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought to districts and communities; they also demand an appreciation of conceptual and critical understanding; and, in addition, support diverse and advanced methodological experimentation.