Accounting and Finance Impact Cases from REF2014

Accounting and Finance Impact Cases from REF2014

The UK’s research assessment exercise REF2014 featured units of assessment submitting impact case studies to illustrate the impact that research has on society. Members of the BAFA Executive have identified 67 impact cases from the REF2014 website that illustrate the impact of accounting and finance research. These cases were submitted to sub-panel 19 (Business & Management) in REF2014.

These cases may be downloaded here, or from the REF2014 website, and illustrate the breadth of accounting and finance research from UK universities. For example cases show how research has affected the implementation and design of accounting standards, financial market regulations, provision of finance for small firms, management accounting systems, banking systems, and development finance overseas.

Ownership of the cases resides with the submitting institution, but UK universities have signed an accord with HEFCE that these cases may be made freely available for non-commercial purposes.

The REF2014 website includes an analysis of all 6,975 impact cases, by subject area http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/ Although the definitions of subject areas on the REF2014 website are fairly general, and many in the accounting and finance disciplines are included under the heading “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services”, along with some also included under the “Economics” heading.

A brief analysis of these cases show that there were substantially more cases in finance (43) rather than accounting (18). In accounting there was a spread across the main areas of: Accounting Education (3), Accounting Standards (2), Auditing (6), Management accounting (2) and Public Sector (5) (including more critical perspectives on accounting issues). In finance, submitted cases were concentrated in the areas of: Asset Pricing (6), Banking (7), Corporate Finance (7), Development Finance (4) and Personal Finance & Regulation (7). Other areas broadly in the area of finance, included Credit Analysis (3), Entrepreneurial Finance and the funding of Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (5), and Pensions (4). There were also cases submitted in Credit Unions/Charities (3) and Taxation (3) which span both the accounting and finance disciplines.