Excellence recognised in 2021 REF results

The UCL Department of Political Science aims to conduct high-quality research with public impact. We are delighted that our success in pursuing this objective has been recognised in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), the results of which were published today.
 
REF2021 is a measure of the quality of research conducted in all university departments throughout the UK over the seven years to 2020. Almost all of our research activity was rated as ‘internationally excellent’, and more than half of it received the highest grading, of ‘world-leading’. We were part of a cluster of departments with very similar grades at the top of the rankings, which also included the University of Strathclyde, Royal Holloway, the LSE, and the University of Edinburgh. We scored highly across all three elements of the assessment: research outputs, research impact, and research environment.
 
Head of Department Professor Ben Lauderdale said:

‘We pride ourselves in taking a collaborative approach to research, both in how we work with each other and in how we engage with other academics and research users beyond academia. I am delighted that these REF results show the discipline of Political Science to be thriving across the UK, and that our young department has consolidated its position as one of the leading centres of excellence in our field. I pay tribute to all the hard work that my colleagues have put in over recent years, leading to these excellent results today. We all look forward to continuing our work with colleagues and partners throughout the UK and beyond, in order to advance our understanding of politics and of ways in which politics could function better.’