Research Assessment Exercise 2008
RAE confirms world-leading research across University
Loughborough has been confirmed as one of the country’s top 20 research universities by the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).
Every department was found to be undertaking research that is internationally recognised, with 18% of the University’s research considered to be ‘world leading’.
As a result Loughborough is to receive an additional £5.97million (36.93%) of research funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). This increase is the fifth largest in the UK and the greatest increase of any UK university without a medical school.
Loughborough has made outstanding progress since 2001. The Times Higher Education (THE) magazine named Loughborough as one of three rising stars among research-intensive universities and the online specialist newspaper Research Fortnight placed Loughborough 23rd among the UK's 158 higher education institutions assessed in the RAE, a rise of nine places from 2001.
According to analysis by the THE and The Guardian, research activity in Design and Technology, ESRI, and the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences was rated the best in the country.
Using a simple measure combining research profile and volume of staff assessed, Loughborough’s research across six departments - the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials, and Human Sciences - was assessed as the best in the UK.
A further three departments - Information Sciences, Social Sciences, and Civil and Building Engineering – were assessed as being in the top five in the country.
Ten departments had over 20% of their research judged to be world leading. They were: Design and Technology (55%), the Ergonomics and Safety Research Institute (ESRI) (55%), Civil and Building Engineering (Built Environment research) (25%), Social Sciences (25%), Sport and Exercise Sciences (25%) Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering (20%), Chemical Engineering (20%), Materials (20%), and Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (20%).
Loughborough submitted over 94% of its academic staff for assessment as part of the 2008 RAE - a rise of around 16% from the last RAE in 2001 and one of the highest returns of any university in the country.
The RAE is conducted jointly every few years by the UK’s four higher education funding bodies - the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DEL).
Its purpose is two-fold - to provide information on the quality of research being undertaken in the country’s higher education institutions, and to provide the four funding bodies with a framework for the allocation of funding to support research infrastructure, ie the salaries of permanent academic staff, premises, libraries and central computing costs. Universities with large volumes of high-quality research receive a larger share of the funding.
As part of the 2008 RAE, universities made submissions to their choice of the 67 prescribed subject areas. All submissions were then reviewed by a panel of experts, who allocated a percentage rating against each of the following criteria:
4* Quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour
3* Quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour but which nonetheless falls short of the highest standards of excellence
2* Quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour
1* Quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour
Unclassified Quality that falls below the standard of nationally recognised work. Or work which does not meet the published definition of research for the purposes of this assessment
There have been six RAEs since 1986. The 2008 RAE is the last; from 2009, a Research Excellence Framework will be introduced, which will be more frequent but will use a different methodology, the details of which have not yet been decided.
