UCL tops the RAE Biomedical & Life Sciences gold medal table

Links:

ucl.ac.uk/slms/" target="_self">UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

The 2008 RAE results

UCL RAE submissions for 2008

UCL's Biomedical & Life Sciences departments have significantly outstripped their closest competitors in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). A comparison between UCL's RAE results for the 16 Units of Assessment (UoA) relating to research in the two faculties and those obtained by King's, Imperial, Oxford, Manchester and Cambridge demonstrates that UCL can justly claim to be the UK's main 'research powerhouse' in this area.

UCL heads the UK's table, with 226 full-time staff-member research outputs (FTEs)  having obtained a 4* rating, some 25% ahead of its closest colleague, Oxford with 170.52.  UCL's average point score is high, at 2.86, but beaten by Oxford (2.99), Cambridge (2.92) and Imperial (2.88) which probably reflects varying policies on the numbers of staff submitted in each UoA. However, when quality and volume are combined in what the Times Higher has called 'research power' (by multiplying the average point score by total FTEs), UCL moves back into a clear first place with a score of 2,337.06, some 24% ahead of the next university (King's with 1,784.51).

UCL Biomedical & Life Sciences RAE Results - Summary

Institution	4* rating x no. of FTEs assessed	Sum of 4* and 3* rating x no. of FTEs assessed	Average point score x no. of FTEs assessed
UCL	226.17	548.21	2,337.06
King's College London	114.42	392.57	1,784.51
Imperial College London	140.69	398.81	1,650.48
Oxford	170.52	396.95	1,612.69
Manchester	123.82	359.56	1,529.53
Cambridge	142.27	346.06	1,407.8

Professor Ed Byrne, Dean of the UCL faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Vice-Provost (Health), says: "The new RAE results confirm that UCL is the strongest medical research university in the United Kingdom. This is evidenced by the number of 4* research outputs and the total number of 4* and 3* research outputs, as well as by its research power (the average research score multiplied by the volume of staff submitted for the assessment), for which it was ranked significantly higher in the Biomedical and Life Sciences categories than any other UK university. This reaffirms both the depth and breadth of biomedical research at UCL as certainly the strongest in the UK."