School performs strongly in REF

Research at the School of Computing has performed very strongly in the national assessment of research quality, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. We have greatly improved our performance compared to the last exercise in 2008.

The School has been judged to be in the top quarter of institutions for the first time, with a rank of 22nd out of 89 based on the key indicator of research power, showing that 81% of research was either world leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*). Even better is the Times Higher Education Research Intensity Measure which places the School of Computing 12th out of 89.

The School’s Director of Research and Enterprise, Peter Rodgers said: ‘Our research impact was especially impressive, with 100% of our submission being rated either world leading or internationally excellent. This demonstrates that the research undertaken by the School has influence well beyond academia.’

This performance is particularly notable as the School of Computing submitted all full-time research academics to the REF. This was an increase in the number of submitted staff to around 30, around 10% more than was submitted to the 2008 excerise, showing that our research is significant in both breadth and depth.