Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
The RAE is the single most important measure of the quality of research undertaken in UK universities. It takes place every 4-5 years and has a directly relationship with funding - institutions conducting the best research receive a larger proportion of the available public funding.
In the most recent RAE of 2008, ITS reconfirmed its standing in the international elite of transport research centres.
The RAE of 2008 identified 95% of the ITS submission as being of ‘internationally recognised’ quality for originality, significance and rigour. Of this, 65% was either 'world leading' or ‘internationally excellent’.
The quality of the research environment was highlighted as a particular strength, as was the support for research students and early career researchers. The assessment panel commented that the ITS submission provided evidence of a research environment which was ‘predominantly outstanding’, with a clear strategy and assessment of progress made over the review period. Support for students and early career researchers was also said to be outstanding.
ITS performed particularly strongly in terms of its research power, reflecting the volume of high quality work conducted across its research groups. With the research of 41 staff submitted to the exercise, including 10 early career researchers, ITS reinforced is position as the largest free-standing academic transport department in the UK.
Commenting on the result, the Director of ITS Mark Wardman said “I am delighted that across the entirety of our wide portfolio of research, with almost all eligible staff submitted, we have been recognised for our excellence in what was by far the largest entry of transport researchers to the RAE and a 60 % increase on the 2001 RAE.”
This result helped to position the University of Leeds as one of the top research universities in the UK, with a ranking of 14th for research quality and 8th for research power, according to the Times Higher Education League Table (THE). Further commentary on the University of Leeds’ RAE performance is available from rae.leeds.ac.uk and www.rae.ac.uk.
The ITS performance in 2008 followed on from an un-paralleled performance across the previous RAEs of 2001, 1996 and 1992. In each of these, ITS achieved the highest possible ranking and was the only transport research unit to deliver such a consistently world-class performance.
Looking ahead, the RAE will be evolving into a system known as the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It will continue to determine University research funding and be the benchmark of quality, but the assessment will include greater emphasis on the wider impacts of the research. For more details, please see the HEFCE website.
