This week Nick talks to Simon Hettrick about the importance of recognising research outputs beyond the traditional academic publications of journal articles and books. These include software, data, exhibitions, compositions, performances...the diverse range of research materials across different disciplines.Simon is Director of Strategy at the Software Sustainability Institute. He led a campaign to gain recognition for Research Software Engineers – a new role in research – and is now the Chair of the Hidden REF: a national campaign that looks to recognise all research outputs and every role that makes research possible. Simon and colleagues have recently launched their own podcast on YouTube called What the REF.Key takeaways:Hidden REF and the 5% Manifesto: Simon explains the motivation behind the Hidden REF campaign, which aims to make research assessment more inclusive of a wider array of outputs. The 5% Manifesto challenges universities to ensure that at least 5% of their future REF submissions are from non-traditionally submitted categories.The Role of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI): Simon shares the background of the SSI, established in 2010 to help researchers improve the use of software in research. The Institute played a key role in founding the Research Software Engineer (RSE) movement, which has grown rapidly and internationally.Recognition for All Research Roles: The episode discusses the importance of recognising all contributors to research - not just researchers themselves, but also RSEs, data stewards, librarians, and technicians. With recent changes to REF guidelines allowing all staff to submit outputs, there’s momentum to value the diverse people who make research possible.Non-Traditionally Submitted Outputs (NTOs): We discuss the ongoing debate around terminology with Simon favouring “not traditionally submitted outputs” rather than Non-Traditional Outputs while retaining the same abbreviation.Infrastructure and Preservation Challenges: Nick and Simon discuss the fragmented infrastructure for storing and preserving different research outputs, from institutional repositories to GitHub and Zenodo. Sustainable storage and preservation are highlighted as significant challenges for the sector.Practical Advice and Policy Initiatives: The discussion covers practicalities like software licensing and persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs for code via GitHub and Zenodo). There is a need to develop institutional policy in these areas in addition to sector-wide efforts under UKRI.Episode links:The Hidden REF - 5% manifestoSoftware Sustainability Institute (SSI)What the REF podcastResearch Software Engineers (RSEs) at Leeds

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