The University of Southampton is placed fifth amongst UK universities for research grant income awarded during the 2017-18 academic year according to figures published by Times Higher Education.
Southampton received nearly £54 million during the year from the UK’s Research Councils rising from 11th last year to place above Oxford which has dropped from first to sixth. The University scored a 29 per cent success rate in funding applications made to research councils.
Amongst the various Councils, Southampton receives the highest amount of funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) with a portfolio of projects currently valued at £54.6m which is first in the UK. During 2017-18 alone, the University was awarded funding of over £24.5m by the EPSRC.
Professor Mark Spearing, Vice-President (Research and Enterprise) said:
“We are very pleased with the improvement in our overall funding and rate of successful research bids. This is the result of hard work by colleagues across the University of Southampton, both investigators and professional services colleagues.
“Our revised research and enterprise strategy, introduced two years ago, has played a key role in this success,” he continued. “The strategy places a focus on people and the mechanisms of support within the University. This has led to a growing awareness of the importance and challenges of the sustainability of research, which fall under the sustainability and quality pillars of the strategy.
“Perhaps even more importantly, we’ve re-energised our focus on collegiality as a driver for success whilst further developing our people and interdisciplinary approach to research,” Professor Spearing concluded. “We’ve also emphasised that increasingly successful bids are interdisciplinary with the potential to involve large teams working together effectively. These are both longstanding areas of strength for the University, which we are seeking to build on.”
