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Imperial rises to second place in research

Dec 14 2001 11:13

Oliver Pell

Imperial College has pushed Oxford into third place in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise with just 0.01 of a point separating the college from the top spot.

Imperial College has knocked Oxford into third place.

The latest Research Assessment Exercise results, published today by HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England) reveal that Imperial College has risen to second place out of the 148 universities assessed.

Of Imperial College's departments, thirteen were graded 5* (the highest possible score) and seven scored 5 with all either showing improvement or maintaining their position - a unique achievement amongst the top four universities. Of Imperial's departments only Agriculture and Environment failed to achieve a 5 rating (settling for 4 on the 1-5* range) - both departments inherited from Wye College and now part of the faculty of Life Sciences. All Engineering departments attained a 5* rating with the exception of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Imperial's Rector, Sir Richard Sykes, described the RAE scores as "a fantastic result," nothing that "75 per cent of our staff achieved the highest mark - 5* - which puts us above all other UK university institutions."

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Discussion about “Imperial rises to second place in research”

The comments below are unmoderated submissions by Live! readers. The Editor accepts no liability for their content, nor for any offence caused by them. Any complaints should be directed to the Editor.

1. Wurzel

Dec 14 2001 12:31

Himmel!

Those darn farmers!

2. Tribology

Dec 14 2001 14:28

Amazing, seeing that the research students are so committed to other activities in college. :-)

3. ISE student

Dec 14 2001 19:29

Elec Eng the only Faculty of Engineering department not to get 5+ ???

That's absolutely hillarious given the whole ISE debacle...

And what does the department have to say about this?

4. Lone Gunman

Dec 14 2001 21:57

IT probably says something like "screw you hippy"

5. Another ISE student

Dec 16 2001 19:48

The Financial Times 'League Table' put IC in forth place after Cam, LSE and Ox, but I'll trust the Rector and Oliver this time.

And yes, it is a bit of an emabarrasment that EEE is the ONLY engineering department not to get 5*. I thought that after the last time in 1996, it was one of the dept's biggest priorities to get 5* this time round. Oh well ...

6. Mustafa Arif

Dec 17 2001 10:16

Different people have different metrics. The RAE exercise (quoted by Oliver) is published by the Higher Education and Funding Council for England - or HEFCHE. This is the government body which (part) funds universities.

From what I remember, the FT league table places a heavier weighting on commercial research income. IC was top (i.e. ahead of Ox,Cam,LSE) in this a couple of years ago.

7. Another ISE student

Dec 18 2001 01:17

Who cares... it's all statistics anyway. Lies, damn lies, ...

If the research is so good then perhaps we can let them concentrate on that and all go home? ;-)

8. Beckett

Aug 20 2002 13:15

Would IC even make it onto the league tables if they knew we had students here who couldn't spell "fourth"?

Closedd This discussion is closed.