Research facts and figures
Research income
- Over the last year, we have been awarded over £30m in external research grant income, of which 63% is from Research Councils.
[Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Financial Statistics Return (FSR) 2009/10. Research grants and contracts income £31.72m, Recurrent research income from funding body £18.39m]
- Our total research income over the last year has been over £50m.
[Source: HESA FSR 2009/10. Income from research grants and contracts and recurrent research income from funding body £50.11m]
Research Councils
- The University is ranked in the top 20 for the number of awards it received from research councils for 2010/11. In total we received 38 awards, placing us at position 20 out of 218 institutions.
- [Source: Times Higher Education Research Council awards 2010/11]
- The University of Reading is ranked equal third for the number of awards (22) received from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with a 32% success rate in grant applications.
[Source: Times Higher Education Research Council awards 2010/11]
- We currently have 21 Research Council fellows amongst our staff.
Research excellence (Research Assessment Exercise [RAE] 2008)
- Using results from the RAE 2008, Reading was ranked in the top 30 in the Research Fortnight Power table.
[Source: RAE 2008. Ranking calculated by multiplying FTE by Grade Point Average (GPA) - see note below]
- The University of Reading was ranked in the top quartile by GPA of HEI's in 11 of its departments (Units of Assessment)
[Source: RAE 2008]
- In the RAE 2008, we were ranked in the top 3 by GPA for Archaeology, Philosophy and Typography
[Source: RAE 2008]
- Our Archaeology Department was found to be top in the country for 4* (World leading) research
[Source: RAE 2008]
RAE 2008 was a peer-review exercise, which employed a two-tiered panel structure. Some 15 main panels oversaw the work of 67 subpanels, made up of about a dozen academics and users of research who assessed the quality of work submitted by institutions to 67 discipline-based units of assessment (UoAs).
The profiles show the percentage of research activity in each department judged to fall within each of four quality grades "in terms of originality, significance and rigour".
The overall institution score is generated from the quality profile in each UOA, weighted according to the number of submitted staff in each Unit of Assessment. At subject level, the Grade-Point Average (GPA) is calculated from the overall quality profile, where the percentage of activity rated at 4* is multiplied by 4, the percentage of activity rated at 3* is multiplied by 3, and so on. The result is divided by 100 to give an average score of between 0 and 4.
Research Students
- Around a third of Home* research students at Reading are funded by the Research Councils
[Source: HESA Student return 2009/10]
- The University of Reading is ranked within the top 10 HEI's for Research Degree Qualification Rates for both Home* and Overseas students
[Source: HEFCE RDQR published Summer 2010, 86% (Home) and 83% (Overseas) qualification rate for PhD students starting their studies in 2002/03]
* 'Home' includes UK and EU