The University has maintained its position as one of the UK’s top research universities, following publication today of the latest national assessment of research.
In this, the first Research Assessment Exercise since 2001, Southampton remains one of the strongest universities across a wide range of subjects in engineering, medicine, humanities and social sciences.
In ten subject categories more than 25 per cent of the research submitted for review by University of Southampton researchers was of the highest level and world-leading in terms of its originality, significance and rigour.
In 27 of the 33 categories to which the University submitted research, over 50 per cent of the research submitted was considered of internationally excellent or world-leading quality, confirming Southampton’s position as one of the leading research universities in the country.
Engineering at Southampton again featured very strongly, with the University joining Imperial College and the University of Cambridge in a ‘golden triangle’ of engineering research excellence, as the top three institutions in the country for their range and quality of engineering. Civil Engineering and the Environment scored especially well.
Medicine is another area in which Southampton has excelled, with primary care ranked third in the country, and other hospital-based clinical subjects and cancer studies scoring particularly highly.
Nursing and midwifery and European studies at Southampton are both in the top two in the country in their categories, computer science is joint second, and sociology and social policy ranked third.
Other particularly high scores were achieved by Earth systems and environmental sciences, applied mathematics, and statistics and operational research.
The University’s School of Humanities has also scored very highly, with excellent results for music, European studies, archaeology and history.
A delighted University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Wakeham, commented: “This is an excellent endorsement of the extremely high standards of research produced by the University of Southampton. I would like to thank everyone here who contributed to such a splendid result in the RAE. It’s been the result of a lot of work and dedication from a large number of people over a long period of time and well done to you all.
“These results underline how far the University of Southampton has progressed in the past decade, to become one of the most respected research universities in the UK.”
For more information visit the RAE website on the Communications pages in Sussed, under the Services tab.