diff --git a/examples/research_projects/rag/callbacks_rag.py b/examples/research_projects/rag/callbacks_rag.py
index ce30db88cdd..3d8425e612e 100644
--- a/examples/research_projects/rag/callbacks_rag.py
+++ b/examples/research_projects/rag/callbacks_rag.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import logging
-import os
 from pathlib import Path
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -34,9 +33,10 @@ def get_checkpoint_callback(output_dir, metric):
         )
 
     checkpoint_callback = ModelCheckpoint(
-        filepath=os.path.join(output_dir, exp),
+        dirpath=output_dir,
+        filename=exp,
         monitor=f"val_{metric}",
-        mode="max",
+        mode="min",
         save_top_k=3,
         period=1,  # maybe save a checkpoint every time val is run, not just end of epoch.
     )
diff --git a/examples/research_projects/rag/distributed_ray_retriever.py b/examples/research_projects/rag/distributed_ray_retriever.py
index 4ee4f963f9a..9ffc1b1e384 100644
--- a/examples/research_projects/rag/distributed_ray_retriever.py
+++ b/examples/research_projects/rag/distributed_ray_retriever.py
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ import random
 
 import ray
 from transformers import RagConfig, RagRetriever, RagTokenizer
-from transformers.file_utils import requires_datasets, requires_faiss
 from transformers.models.rag.retrieval_rag import CustomHFIndex
 
 
@@ -134,8 +133,6 @@ class RagRayDistributedRetriever(RagRetriever):
 
     @classmethod
     def from_pretrained(cls, retriever_name_or_path, actor_handles, indexed_dataset=None, **kwargs):
-        requires_datasets(cls)
-        requires_faiss(cls)
         config = kwargs.pop("config", None) or RagConfig.from_pretrained(retriever_name_or_path, **kwargs)
         rag_tokenizer = RagTokenizer.from_pretrained(retriever_name_or_path, config=config)
         question_encoder_tokenizer = rag_tokenizer.question_encoder
diff --git a/examples/research_projects/rag/finetune_rag.py b/examples/research_projects/rag/finetune_rag.py
index 1a1f6772ecb..e048153c988 100644
--- a/examples/research_projects/rag/finetune_rag.py
+++ b/examples/research_projects/rag/finetune_rag.py
@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@ import numpy as np
 import pytorch_lightning as pl
 import torch
 import torch.distributed as dist
-from pytorch_lightning.accelerators.ddp_accelerator import DDPAccelerator
-from pytorch_lightning.cluster_environments import TorchElasticEnvironment
+import torch.distributed as torch_distrib
+from pytorch_lightning.plugins.training_type import DDPPlugin
 from torch.utils.data import DataLoader
 
 from transformers import (
@@ -36,7 +36,6 @@ if is_ray_available():
     import ray
     from distributed_ray_retriever import RagRayDistributedRetriever, RayRetriever
 
-
 from callbacks_rag import (  # noqa: E402 # isort:skipq
     get_checkpoint_callback,
     get_early_stopping_callback,
@@ -74,27 +73,19 @@ class AttrDict(dict):
         self.__dict__ = self
 
 
-# In PTL >v1.0, `init_ddp_connection` method in the `LightningModule`
-# is no longer used, and is moved into DDPAccelerator instead.
-# We override DDPAccelerator to add our custom logic for initializing the
-# retriever.
-# https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/blob/master/tests/backends/test_accelerator_connector.py
+class CustomDDP(DDPPlugin):
+    def init_ddp_connection(self, global_rank=None, world_size=None) -> None:
+        module = self.model
+        global_rank = global_rank if global_rank is not None else self.cluster_environment.global_rank()
+        world_size = world_size if world_size is not None else self.cluster_environment.world_size()
+        os.environ["MASTER_ADDR"] = self.cluster_environment.master_address()
+        os.environ["MASTER_PORT"] = str(self.cluster_environment.master_port())
+        if not torch.distributed.is_initialized():
+            logger.info(f"initializing ddp: GLOBAL_RANK: {global_rank}, MEMBER: {global_rank + 1}/{world_size}")
+            torch_distrib.init_process_group(self.torch_distributed_backend, rank=global_rank, world_size=world_size)
 
-
-class CustomAccel(DDPAccelerator):
-    def __init__(self, trainer=None, **kwargs):
-        # Trainer is set later.
-        super().__init__(trainer, **kwargs)
-
-    def init_ddp_connection(self, global_rank: int, world_size: int, is_slurm_managing_tasks: bool = True):
-        logger.info("Custom init_ddp_connection.")
-        module = self.trainer.model
-        if self.cluster_environment is None:
-            self.cluster_environment = TorchElasticEnvironment()
-        self.distributed_port = module.hparams.distributed_port
-        os.environ["MASTER_PORT"] = str(self.distributed_port)
-        super().init_ddp_connection(global_rank, world_size, is_slurm_managing_tasks)
         if module.is_rag_model:
+            self.distributed_port = module.hparams.distributed_port
             if module.distributed_retriever == "pytorch":
                 module.model.rag.retriever.init_retrieval(self.distributed_port)
             elif module.distributed_retriever == "ray" and global_rank == 0:
@@ -594,7 +585,7 @@ def main(args=None, model=None) -> GenerativeQAModule:
         checkpoint_callback=get_checkpoint_callback(args.output_dir, model.val_metric),
         early_stopping_callback=es_callback,
         logger=training_logger,
-        accelerator=CustomAccel() if args.gpus > 1 else None,
+        custom_ddp_plugin=CustomDDP() if args.gpus > 1 else None,
         profiler=pl.profiler.AdvancedProfiler() if args.profile else None,
     )
     pickle_save(model.hparams, model.output_dir / "hparams.pkl")
diff --git a/examples/research_projects/rag/lightning_base.py b/examples/research_projects/rag/lightning_base.py
index a9a05fbf960..04f82eb9e16 100644
--- a/examples/research_projects/rag/lightning_base.py
+++ b/examples/research_projects/rag/lightning_base.py
@@ -167,8 +167,8 @@ class BaseTransformer(pl.LightningModule):
         effective_batch_size = self.hparams.train_batch_size * self.hparams.accumulate_grad_batches * num_devices
         return (self.dataset_size / effective_batch_size) * self.hparams.max_epochs
 
-    def setup(self, mode):
-        if mode == "test":
+    def setup(self, stage):
+        if stage == "test":
             self.dataset_size = len(self.test_dataloader().dataset)
         else:
             self.train_loader = self.get_dataloader("train", self.hparams.train_batch_size, shuffle=True)
@@ -341,6 +341,7 @@ def generic_train(
     args: argparse.Namespace,
     early_stopping_callback=None,
     logger=True,  # can pass WandbLogger() here
+    custom_ddp_plugin=None,
     extra_callbacks=[],
     checkpoint_callback=None,
     logging_callback=None,
@@ -370,18 +371,17 @@ def generic_train(
         train_params["amp_level"] = args.fp16_opt_level
 
     if args.gpus > 1:
-        train_params["distributed_backend"] = "ddp"
+        train_params["accelerator"] = "ddp"
 
     train_params["accumulate_grad_batches"] = args.accumulate_grad_batches
-    train_params["accelerator"] = extra_train_kwargs.get("accelerator", None)
-    train_params["profiler"] = extra_train_kwargs.get("profiler", None)
+    train_params["profiler"] = None  # extra_train_kwargs.get("profiler", None) #get unwanted logs
 
     trainer = pl.Trainer.from_argparse_args(
         args,
         weights_summary=None,
-        callbacks=[logging_callback] + extra_callbacks,
+        callbacks=[logging_callback] + extra_callbacks + [checkpoint_callback],
+        plugins=[custom_ddp_plugin],
         logger=logger,
-        checkpoint_callback=checkpoint_callback,
         **train_params,
     )
 
diff --git a/examples/research_projects/rag/requirements.txt b/examples/research_projects/rag/requirements.txt
index 639ebf12d27..ef065e36e1c 100644
--- a/examples/research_projects/rag/requirements.txt
+++ b/examples/research_projects/rag/requirements.txt
@@ -3,5 +3,5 @@ datasets >= 1.0.1
 psutil >= 5.7.0
 torch >= 1.4.0
 transformers
-pytorch-lightning==1.0.4
-GitPython
+pytorch-lightning==1.3.1
+GitPython
\ No newline at end of file