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The South West universities and higher education colleges are celebrating excellent results in the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) outcomes, published in December 2008.
The region contains some of the UK's top research universities, according to the rigorous exercise to assess the quality of research at higher education institutions, which measured the percentage of research within each unit of assessment at different levels from 4* (world leading), 3* (internationally excellent) and 2* (internationally recognised) to 1* (nationally recognised).
The results show that the South West has enormous research strengths across a wide range of disciplines and of all research carried out 86 per cent is rated as being at internationally recognised levels. Entries were submitted for close to 3,500 staff in a total of 187 units of assessment.
The University of Bristol accounted for half of the staff submitted in the South West and 93 per cent of its research was at internationally recognised levels, with 18 per cent rated as world leading. The Universities of Bath and Exeter had elements of world-leading research in all of the disciplines submitted for the assessment and 93 and 90 per cent respectively was rated as internationally recognised or better.
The University of Plymouth and the University of the West of England received their best ever results with 79 per cent of research at both institutions rated as internationally recognised. Bournemouth University is now in the top ten amongst the UK’s 60 new universities, following a stamp of 'international recognition' or better on 75 percent of its research. The South West also had pockets of excellence within its specialist institutions, including University College Falmouth with 79 per cent of research being internationally recognised.
Commenting on the overall national results, Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) which is responsible for the RAE, said "This represents an outstanding achievement, confirming that the UK is among the top rank of research powers in the world.”
The RAE outcomes will inform HEFCE’s research funding decisions and March 2009 will see the publication of how the results will translate to actual funding allocations.