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

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.