To prepare for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2020, Professor Chris WILLIAMS, Head of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences at University College Cork, Republic of Ireland, was invited to visit CLASS. A public lecture entitled ‘UK Research Excellence Framework 2014: Experiences of a Panel Member’ was held on 23 May 2018 with Professor Williams as the guest speaker. This was the second lecture on RAE-related topics organised by the College.

Professor Williams shared his experience as the sub-panel member for History in the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014 exercise. He talked about how research outputs were graded in the five quality levels and explained the definition of each quality level. Supported with examples of highly-rated research outputs in the sharing, he also suggested that a good research output should fulfil the three quality criteria: ‘Originality’, ‘Significance’, and ‘Rigour’.

Professor Williams is a Welsh historian, formerly Professor of History and Head of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. He is best known for his work on editing the diaries of Richard Burton.