Research

UCL has thousands of academic and research staff working at the forefront of their fields of enquiry.

Independent assessment ranks UCL's research among the best in the world.

Medicine, architecture, laws, economics, computer science and philosophy are among the academic disciplines at UCL to have achieved outstanding results in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, with UCL’s total number of full-time equivalent staff rated of world-leading quality third overall in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge.

The RAE assesses the research strength of UK universities, and informs the distribution of public funds to the sector by the nation’s higher education funding bodies. UCL submitted more than 1,800 staff in 49 of the 67 Units of Assessment. In In 43 of our submissions, at least 50% of UCL's quality profile was either 4* (‘of world-leading quality’), or 3* (‘internationally excellent’). The next such exercise will be the Research Excellence Framework 2014.

The Thomson Scientific Citation Index – which catalogues journal articles and citations in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities – shows that UCL is the second most-highly cited European university and 15th in the world. It is also the UK university most-cited by health researchers.

Competitively won research grants and contracts account for more than a third of UCL’s income.

Income – 2011/2012

We have enjoyed exceptional success in competitive bidding for funds from the government’s Joint Infrastructure Fund, the Science Research Investment Fund and the Capital Investment Fund. In total, these funds will have enabled us to invest more than £360 million in state-of-the-art infrastructure, facilitating cutting-edge research across a broad range of disciplines.

There has been at least one Nobel Laureate from the UCL community every decade since the establishment of the Nobel Prizes in 1901.

The 21 UCL-related Nobel Laureates, so far, are:

• 1904 Chemistry: Sir William Ramsay
• 1913 Literature: Rabindranath Tagore
• 1915 Physics: Sir William Henry Bragg
• 1921 Chemistry: Frederick Soddy
• 1922 Physiology or Medicine: Archibald Vivian Hill
• 1928 Physics: Owen Willans Richardson
• 1929 Physiology or Medicine: Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins
• 1936 Physiology or Medicine: Sir Henry Hallett Dale
• 1944 Chemistry: Otto Hahn
• 1947 Chemistry: Sir Robert Robinson
• 1955 Chemistry: Vincent du Vigneaud
• 1959 Chemistry: Jaroslav Heyrovsky
• 1960 Physiology or Medicine: Peter Brian Medawar
• 1962 Physiology or Medicine: Francis Harry Compton Crick
• 1963 Physiology or Medicine: Andrew Fielding Huxley
• 1970 Physiology or Medicine: Bernard Katz
• 1970 Physiology or Medicine: Ulf Svante von Euler
• 1988 Physiology or Medicine: Sir James Black
• 1991 Physiology or Medicine: Bert Sakmann
• 2007 Physiology or Medicine: Professor Sir Martin Evans
• 2009 Physics: Professor Charles Kao

Our current academic community includes 36 Fellows of the Royal Society, 26 Fellows of the British Academy, 10 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

UCL Library Services hosts an exhibition – also featured online – about nine of the university’s Fellows of the Royal Society.

This novel scheme supports researchers whose ideas have transformational potential.

Read more about the UCL Provost's Venture Research Fellowship.