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UCL Rated #1 for Research in Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience

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The outcome of the Government’s 6-year evaluation of research in UK universities, which forms the basis for its distribution of £1.6 billion per annum, has been published and shows UCL as the top-ranked university for research in Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience as well as the 2nd ranked institution across all subjects.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) judges 51% of UCL’s research in Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience as world-leading (4*) and 32% as internationally excellent (3*). UCL’s research environment achieved the maximum possible score, 100% at 4*.

The submission also included 28 case studies of the impact of our research, and 73% of these were rated world-leading. Impact cases covered diverse research applications such as programmes for helping people to stop smoking, a new drug treatment for multiple sclerosis, computer software for analysing brain imaging data, and stem-cell based transplants for deafness.

    No. staff submitted 4* 3* 2* 1* 4*/3* x no. staff submitted
1 University College London 287 51 32 14 2 238
2 King's College London 239 47 41 11 1 210
3 University of Edinburgh 117 49 38 12 1 102
4 University of Oxford 98 67 28 5 0 93
5 University of Cambridge 76 58 35 7 0 71
6 Cardiff University 69 60 32 8 0 64
7 University of Manchester 68 42 41 15 2 56
8 University of Bristol 69 43 37 18 1 55
9 Newcastle University 52 51 36 12 1 45
10 University of Nottingham 53 38 44 17 1 44

UCL also tops the league table for Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience when it is based on average quality or ‘grade point average’ (GPA). Unlike UCL, many universities omitted a large proportion of their eligible staff from the evaluation, but this can be factored in by multiplying GPA by the proportion of eligible staff submitted:

    No. staff submitted GPA Proportion of eligible staff submitted GPA x Prop staff submitted
1 University College London 287 3.30 92 3.05
2 University of Glasgow 34 3.21 95 3.05
3 Goldsmiths' College 33 2.98 100 2.98
4 King's College London 239 3.34 89 2.98
5 Birkbeck College 28 3.45 86 2.96
6 University of Birmingham 41 3.41 87 2.96
7 University of Cambridge 76 3.51 83 2.90
8 University of Edinburgh 117 3.35 86 2.87
9 Queen's University Belfast 25 2.99 96 2.86
10 Imperial College London 44 3.41 84 2.85

“Warmest congratulations to all staff in the Faculty of Brain Sciences for these REF results which highlight the outstanding research conducted at UCL over the past 6 years.”

Prof Alan Thompson, Dean of UCL’s Faculty of Brain Sciences

“These excellent results confirm UCL’s position as the top centre in the UK for research in Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience. We are particularly pleased to see recognition of the scale and significance of the impact of our research in healthcare, business and policy-making. The top score for our research environment acknowledges the wealth of equipment and clinical populations we have access to, the impact of the new faculty structure and the major contribution made by students to the research culture. From the moment they arrive students at all levels, both undergraduate and graduate, become actively engaged in cutting-edge research.”

Prof David Shanks, Head of UCL’s Division of Psychology and Language Sciences.

For further information about UCL’s performance in the Research Excellence Framework see www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1214/181214-ucl-results-ref.

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