Kent Law School is ranked 8th in the UK for research intensity in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) rankings.
In the THE rankings by subject, based on the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, the School outperforms 19 of 24 Russell Group universities, including Warwick, Queen’s Belfast, Edinburgh, Durham and York.
Research intensity measures the School’s average quality score in combination with the proportion of eligible staff submitted for review to the REF. Almost all (99%) of Kent Law School’s research was judged to be of international quality with 79% judged as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. The School submitted 45 academics for review – an impressive 89% of eligible staff.
The REF, an independent survey of UK universities, has already ranked the School 7th for its ‘research power’ with more than a third of the School’s research being given the highest 4* rating.
The dynamic research culture and community within the School has also been fully endorsed with 100% of its research environment recognised as being conducive to producing research of ‘world-leading’ and ‘internationally excellent’ quality in the initial REF results published in December.
Head of School Professor Didi Herman said: ‘These are excellent results which reflect both our international reputation for producing world-leading research and our passion and commitment to producing research that makes a difference in society.
‘We submitted almost all our eligible staff for review and are very proud of the depth and breadth of the exceptional research in which our staff are engaged.
‘We use our research to advise governments, law-makers, legal practitioners, international bodies, non-governmental organisations and activists.’
As an institution, the University of Kent has also performed well in the rankings for research intensity, being placed 17th nationally amongst multi-faculty institutions.