The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will be publishing the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise on Thursday 18 December.
Advance details will be released to Vice-Chancellors the previous day, under strict embargo, which means the earliest the University will be able to circulate details to staff will be Thursday morning (18 December).
HEFCE will publish the results on its website www.rae.ac.uk from 00:01 Thursday 18 December, when the embargo lifts, and details will also appear in the press on Thursday 18 December.
We will post key details of Southampton’s RAE outcomes here, on the Noticeboard on Sussed, at the earliest opportunity, and will also issue an update to staff by means of an electronic newsletter.
The December announcement from HEFCE will include details of the overall quality profile for each Unit of Assessment (for example, Physics or Chemistry). However, the breakdown of the percentage apportioned to each of the three elements of the profiles (research outputs, research environment and esteem factors) will not be released until early next year.
Information about the financial implications for HEIs of the RAE outcomes will be issued by HEFCE in March.
Background information about RAE 2008
The University submitted its data for the RAE at the end of 2007, following four years’ work by a large number of individuals. The final stages of preparation involved over 100 people from Schools and Professional Services, as well as more than 1000 research staff whose publications formed a major part of the submissions.
The primary purpose of the RAE 2008, the fourth such national exercise since 1992, was to produce quality profiles for each submission of research activity made by institutions.
Southampton made a total of 33 submissions to 32 of the 67 Units of Assessment (UoA).
The results will be used by HEFCE to determine the University’s research grant, which this year amounted to over £47 million.
The scoring system for RAE 2008 is very different from that used in 2001 and HEFCE has made it clear that it is not possible to make a simple comparison between the two. For example, some of the Units of Assessment have changed since 2001, particularly in medical sciences, so direct comparisons will be difficult.
The presentation of the results will also be different and assessments will be presented in the form of a quality profile with the following definitions:
4* (the highest level: 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); to
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).
For further information about the RAE visit HEFCE’s website www.rae.ac.uk