A retired Cardiff University professor who says he was denied emeritus status for criticising management has accused the institution of seeking to profit from his work while disowning him. In a letter to the organisers of REF 2029 – the UK’s research audit, which helps determine how billions of pounds in taxpayer-backed funding is distributed to universities – Professor James Whitley asked whether Cardiff could still submit his research outputs after severing ties. He has now been told that it can, provided the research was carried out while he was employed there. His case raises fresh concerns that universities may be allowed to claim credit – and draw down public funding – for the work of scholars they no longer employ, even where institutional recognition and basic access have been withdrawn.
Whitley, an archaeologist who spent 35 years at Cardiff, accepted voluntary redundancy earlier this year after the Russell Group institution closed its School of Ancient History as part of wider plans to cut around 400 academic jobs and address a £31.2 million deficit.
While retiring full professors are typically granted emeritus status in recognition of their service, Whitley said the honour was withheld without explanation. He believes the decision was prompted by his opposition to the restructuring, which he expressed in a letter to the university’s governing council.
Although Whitley has been removed from Cardiff’s list of honorary staff and has lost access to email, library systems and online journals, many of his publications – including several published since 2021 – remain listed on ORCA, the university’s open-access research repository. Whitley says that, under REF 2029 rules, Cardiff could still be permitted to submit such work as part of its next submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).
The REF is the UK-wide system for assessing research quality in higher education. The next exercise, REF 2029, will review outputs first made publicly available between 2021 and 2028 and is used to allocate around £2 billion a year in public research funding.
A Cardiff University spokesperson said no decisions had yet been made about the institution’s REF 2029 submission, adding: “ORCA includes all research outputs to help make our work more widely available. Academics are free to submit their work themselves.”
Whitley raised the issue directly with REF administrators, seeking clarification as to whether his work could be included in this way. “Is it ethical,” he wrote, “for an institution to submit publications on behalf of a unit of assessment, when one member of that unit (whose publications are being submitted) has been ‘cancelled’ in this way?”
In their response, REF administrators told Whitley: “Under the REF 2029 guidance, institutions are permitted to submit outputs where they have a substantive link to the research… This applies even if the individual has since left the institution.”
Whitley is not the first to raise concerns about REF 2029. Open letters from performing arts and English subject associations have warned that rule changes could allow universities to retain control over research by academics they no longer employ – particularly disadvantaging those on short-term contracts, or those working on long-form outputs like monographs who may lack time to produce new material at a subsequent institution. The effect could be career-determining, they argue, particularly in disciplines where research outputs are scarce and REF eligibility influences hiring or promotion. Scholars whose most valuable work is ‘locked’ at a previous institution may struggle to remain on research contracts, increasing pressure to accept teaching-only roles — though post-pause revisions have introduced a limited “portability” concession for certain long-form and extended-process outputs.
But as Whitley’s case suggests, the system’s shifting approach to intellectual labour may also affect senior academics who exit the sector voluntarily, and find their work still claimed by institutions with which they no longer have a relationship.
Unlike previous exercises in 2014 and 2021, REF 2029 does not require universities to submit named academics via a staff census list. Instead, they will report an aggregate number of outputs based on the average size of their eligible research workforce, calculated over two full academic years – 2025–26 and 2026–27 – rather than a snapshot on a single census date. In terms of specific outputs, however, universities may submit an academic’s work irrespective of whether that person is employed during those volume-measure years.
For many, the most contentious feature of this system is that institutions may still be able to submit work after employment ends, because the required “substantive link” to the institution – the criterion referenced in the REF administration team’s response to Whitley – can be evidenced either at the point an output is first made publicly available, or during a defined pre-publication period when the research was carried out: within two years in most cases, or within five years for long-form outputs, to reflect extended production and publication timelines. This can apply even if that person is not listed as honorary staff, granted emeritus status, or still working in higher education – and their consent is not required. The key pre-condition is that the output must stem from research supported during their qualifying contract.
This is possible because REF 2029 shifts the locus of REF credit towards the institution, introducing what administrators call “decoupling” – the removal of any fixed link between the staff counted for submission volume and the specific outputs selected. Unlike REF 2021 – where, if a researcher moved between institutions, the same single-authored output could be submitted by both, thereby allowing the output to follow its author – REF 2029 generally attributes each single-authored output to the institution with which the researcher had a “substantive link” at the time the work was carried out or the output was first made publicly available – i.e., a contract of at least 0.2 FTE for a continuous period of 12 months or more, with a formal expectation of research.
The rules formally distinguish between voluntary and involuntary departures: in cases of compulsory redundancy, universities are barred from submitting outputs that are first made publicly available after the end of employment where eligibility would otherwise depend on a pre-publication substantive link (though outputs made publicly available before that point remain eligible). But in a financially squeezed, marketised and increasingly managerial sector where redundancy is often pre-empted through ‘voluntary’ severance schemes, that procedural distinction may obscure the structural reality of how and why many academics leave.
So in Whitley’s case, because he accepted voluntary redundancy in 2025, Cardiff University could potentially submit outputs first made publicly available up to the end of the REF period that stem from research carried out under his qualifying contract — including outputs appearing after his departure where the substantive-link rules are satisfied. The reply from REF administrators suggests that, whatever one makes of the fairness of such an arrangement, it is permissible under the rules as currently written.
CAF is now preparing a formal letter to Cardiff on Whitley’s behalf seeking clarification on three points: first, the policy basis for withholding emeritus status from a retiring professor, and whether any formal process or appeal mechanism governs such decisions; second, whether the withdrawal of email and library/journal access is standard practice for retired professors who are not granted emeritus status; and third, whether Cardiff’s developing REF Code of Practice addresses how outputs are selected where the author is no longer employed, including where a departure followed a dispute or restructuring.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, click the link and subscribe to our newsletter.