I don't wish to be tetchy, but if your answer to REF being bureaucratic and expensive is to give the money out via research grants, then you really don't understand how expensive the research grant system is to run (for both sides) www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Scrap REF to ‘save £450 million’, says think tank - Research Professional News

UK Day One suggests “new, low-bureaucracy system” would improve research quality

the exact opposite of what most people suggest...the exact opposite of what most people suggest...

I do think we've made REF more complicated than it needs to be (and probably about to make even more so), but let's not pretend that the research grant model isn't also badly broken (I'm tempted to say more so)