RAE2008 Results

RAE shows the Faculty of Natural Sciences to be the second best of all UK universities.

The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise confirmed the Faculty of Natural Sciences to be the second strongest in the UK, based on the proportion of world-leading (4*) and internationally excellent (3*) research activity over all of our research areas.

The Faculty of Natural Sciences made submissions to six research areas (termed Units of Assessment) including Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics and Operational Research. The assessment produced a profile of submitted research activity, categorised in five bands; 4* (‘world leading’), 3* (‘internationally excellent’), 2* (‘recognised internationally’), 1* (‘recognised nationally’) and U/C (unclassified). The results show that the Faculty as a whole ranks second in the UK, based on the proportion of world-leading (4*) and internationally excellent (3*) research activity, when compared to institutions submitting to the same six units of assessment.

Analysis of individual units of assessment shows Departments within the Faculty to be within the top 6 research departments in the UK, in terms of the volume of research activity judged to be world-leading, over all six research area submissions.

Professor Maggie Dallman, Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, said: “It’s fantastic to see that researchers from right across the Faculty—from evolutionary biology, through maths and chemistry, to astrophysics—have performed so well in all the core disciplines that not only contribute to our fundamental knowledge base, but also underpin our applied and translational work.”

Full details of the College's RAE results can be found here