The University has placed sixth amongst UK universities for research grant income awarded during the 2015-16 academic year, according to figures published recently by Times Higher Education.
Southampton received nearly £48m during the year from the UK’s six research councils – a rise of seven per cent on the previous period. The University also scored a 33 per cent success rate in funding applications made to research councils, achieving an increase of four per cent.
Southampton is one of only two universities in the top 10 to see an increase in success rate and one of only three universities in the top 10 to experience an increase in funding.
Amongst the six research councils, Southampton receives the highest amount of funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with over £37.7m awarded during 2015-16, second only to University College London.
During the year, Southampton’s three largest research council awards all came via the EPSRC, including:
- Over £9m provided to designate the Optoelectronics Research Centre as a National Hub in High Value Photonic Manufacturing.
- The Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences was awarded over £5.2m to support the PADEPT project looking at Advanced Devices in ElectroPlaTing and Electronics.
- Computer Science received over £2.7m for the POETS event-based parallel computing project researching Partially Ordered Event Triggered Systems.
“The UK’s Research Councils remain the most significant funders of research across all subjects throughout the University,” said Professor Mark Spearing, the University’s Vice-President (Research and Enterprise). “The increases in both the amount of funding we receive and the success rate of our applications is testament to the combined efforts of many colleagues across the University and is a clear indication of our collective commitment to the quality and sustainability of our research.”
Funding from the UK’s research councils was down from £1.3bn in 2013-14 to £1.1bn in 2015-16. Oxford led this year’s list with research grant income of £90.7m but a 35 per cent reduction in overall funding on the previous year.
