Research Assessment Exercise

What is the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)?

RAE is the UK's ultimate guide to research quality and excellence. Performed every five years, it ranks all universities on research strength and rates the academic disciplines they submit on the basis of their international rank. This is measured by:

• means of quality - averaging the research carried out within a discipline, but not including the number of researchers working within that field
• research power - taking into account both quality and the number of academics within a discipline.

Latest RAE rankings

In the most recent RAE rankings taken in 2008, the University of Nottingham scored highly in quality rankings covering major disciplines in science, engineering, the social sciences, business and the arts. It is our increase in research power rankings which shows the impressive amount of excellent research we carry out. We are:

• now ranked seventh of all British universities and only one of two institutions to move into the UK top ten since 2001 - an increase of seven places
• in the top five for a total of nineteen units (more than half)

Ranked first

We ranked first in the UK in the areas of:

• Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Sciences
• American Studies and Anglophone Area Studies
• Iberian and Latin American Languages
• Pharmacy

Top three units

In addition to those areas ranked first, the following units are also in the top three for either grade point average (GPA) or research power.

• Chemistry
• Physics and Astronomy
• American and Canadian Studies
• French and Francophone studies
• Hispanic and Latin American Studies
• Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Top ten units

View the thirty four units ranked in the top ten by downloading our pdf brochure: Nottingham: International Research Leader, Research Assessment Exercise 2008-14 brochure.

World-leading research

Nottingham entered one of the highest numbers of research areas for assessment and 91% of eligible research staff – this showed our confidence in the international standard of our academics and the range of excellence to be found amongst our staff and students.

Following the RAE results:

• 90% of all research at Nottingham has been classified of an 'international standard'
• 60% of research has been classified as 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'.

For further information on our RAE 2008 achievements, download our pdf brochure Research Assessment Exercise Outcome brochure 2008-14