ASA warns University of Leicester over misleading social media post
The University of Leicester has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a misleading social media post.
On 13 May 2022 the University’s official Twitter account stated “We’re number 1! Our Arts and Humanities research is number 1 in the UK for overall research quality (GPA) in #REF2021.”
A former academic responded by lodging a complaint with ASA on the grounds that specific rankings for an “Arts and Humanities” research category were not included in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Moreover, the complainant argued that Leicester’s submissions for arts and humanities subjects were “less extensive” than those from other institutions.
The REF – partly an impact assessment exercise – was introduced in 2014 to evaluate and rank the research output of UK universities.
In response, the University of Leicester said it had undertaken a “rigorous” process to determine the rankings quoted in the Tweet.
It said that analysis by the Times Higher Education (THE) in which universities were given a ranking for research based on Grade Point Average (GPA) had been factored into its assessment, which was “internally self-calculated.”
The university also said that the REF methodology was “complex” and that institutions tend to list their results in different ways.
However, following an investigation the ASA concluded that “the average consumer” would take the claim “We’re number 1! Our Arts and Humanities research is number 1 in the UK for overall research quality (GPA) in #REF2021” at face value, assuming it meant that the University of Leicester had been identified by the REF 2021 as the number one university for research in arts and humanities in the UK.
The regulator added that the ad “must not appear again in its current form” and told the university to ensure that future ads “did not suggest they had been ranked directly by the REF 2021, and to ensure the basis of comparative claims was made clear and was verifiable, particularly when citing their own analysis or citing reports or methodologies by other bodies.”
