Success in the Research Assessment Exercise 2008

19 August 2008

Staff from the Department for Health contributed to a successful outcome to the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE2008) for the University, which is ranked 18th amongst UK universities. The results recognise that research carried out by the School is of world class and international quality.

Members of the Department contributed to four units of assessment: business & management, pharmacy & pharmacology, social work & social policy, and sport studies.

The results released yesterday by the RAE2008, which are based on expert review, including the views of international experts in all the main subject areas, show;

• Business & management was 5th out of 90 UK-wide submissions
• Pharmacy and pharmacology was 4th out of 15 Pharmacy departments in the UK.
• Social work & social policy obtained the highest set of scores at the University of Bath (1st out of 18 submissions) and was 2nd to the LSE out of 68 submissions in total across the UK.
• Sport and Exercise Science came 6th out of 39 in the UK with 35% of our research judged as ‘ world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. The University of Bath is now in the 2nd best group of sports departments in terms of research in the UK. The top group embraces Loughborough, Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool John Moores. However, Bath is clearly in the 2nd group that includes Brunel, Leeds Metropolitan and Stirling. These results are excellent for the subject, still in its relative infancy at Bath; in the RAE2001 ranked we were ranked 16th nationally so there has been significant development.

‘I would like to congratulate all staff involved in the process of submitting their research work and achieving such great results’ says Prof Ken Judge, Head of the School for Health. ‘These results represent an excellent contribution to the University of Bath’s overall reputation and status as a leader of research in a number of fields’.

RAE2008 is the latest in a series of efforts to assess the quality of research undertaken in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. It is used as the basis for distributing substantial amounts of finance to support research activity.