UK research rankings…

(otherwise know as the Research Excellence Framework)… were published on 18th December.  All Universities are invited to participate and submit a case showcasing their research outputs, environment and impact.  And the familiar rush has been on across the country to cut the data in a way that tells the best story.  Figuring out what is going on is made more difficult by the fact that there are different measures of performance and different Universities tailored their submissions to
perform well against different ones.

Across all subjects, The University of Sheffield were happy with their performance:

“The results demonstrate excellence across research, putting Sheffield in the top 10 per cent of all UK universities. The quality, breadth and volume of the University’s research activity are demonstrated by the fact that 86 per cent of the research submitted by the academic staff has been rigorously judged as world leading or internationally excellent.  The University was one of only three in the country to make 35 or more submissions in different subject areas.”

Here in ScHARR, which submits to Unit of Assessment 2 “Public health, health services and primary care”, we were happy with our target indicator of research power (calculated as research quality by number of researchers submitted) – we are 4th out of 32 institutions, behind London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UCL and Bristol.