Show us the money

N. HAMID

The results of last year's UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) have left the country's universities and colleges with mixed feelings. Some are elated about their performance in this extensive audit of UK research quality, last undertaken in 2001. They anticipate boosting the number of research staff with the government funding they are likely to receive on the basis of the rankings. Some institutions are dismayed by the results, which they feel did not reflect the value of their work. Others are waiting to see what effect their ranking will have on their funding.

Administered on behalf of the four UK higher-education funding councils, the RAE classifies the quality of research submitted by participating colleges and universities. Work submitted by the 159 institutions that took part was judged by peer review, using experts from many countries to compare the research with the rest of the world's. The funding councils will use the results, released on 18 December (see Nature 457, 13; 2009), to determine how to allocate research funding to those institutions. Some £1.5 billion (US$2.1 billion) will be distributed for 2009–10.

But although the rankings may hint at the government's intentions, institutions won't learn for sure until March or April exactly how much they will receive. The Higher Education Funding Council of England announces its results on 5 March; the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales on 16 March; Northern Ireland's Department for Employment and Learning at the end of March or the beginning of April, and the Scottish Funding Council on 2 April.

See pdf version for a magnified version of the table

Research submissions were ranked as world-leading (four-star), internationally excellent (three-star), internationally recognized (two-star) or nationally recognized (one-star). Submissions from each institution were grouped in each category according to the percentage of work earning that rating (see chart.)

The results have given some participants grounds for optimism about funding. "We feel confident that we can make plans for strategic investments," says Alan Gilbert, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester. Gilbert hopes Manchester's performance in several areas, among them nuclear energy R&D, cancer studies and systems biology, will merit a healthy funding stream, which in turn will allow it to carry on with high-calibre recruitment.

"We want to continue investing in world-class people and concentrate on areas where we have a chance of making a difference," he says, adding that the university seeks to also build expertise in aerospace engineering and areas in biology. "We've actually found that making very ambitious and high-profile appointments is revenue positive," Gilbert says. Hiring prominent researchers tends to attract more students and can boost the quality of research, he says. This in turn facilitates earning more grants.

The University of Exeter also likes its rankings results, according to its deputy vice-chancellor for research, Roger Kain. He says Exeter hopes to take on additional research staff, most likely in biological sciences and geography. "From our estimate, it looks as if we are going to benefit very nicely from the funding," he says.

Waiting: Alan Gilbert (top) and Ian Postlethwaite.

At the University of Leeds, John Fisher, deputy vice-chancellor, says he expects the university will be able to hire more researchers as well. The university hopes to boost research staff in biomedicine and health, food security and sustainable agriculture, among other areas. Its rankings performance "meets our highest expectations", says Fisher, adding that it achieved higher rankings this time around than in the previous RAE. "Getting a good outcome in the RAE moves us closer to [our goal] in terms of research quality."

Other notable institutions suggested the rankings will have little effect on hiring. "We'd like to think we've improved our comparative position in the RAE," says Nigel Brown, vice-principal and head of the University of Edinburgh's College of Science and Engineering. "But it won't translate into positions won or lost. What it will do is help in our recruitment."

At University College London (UCL), it's uncertain how, or whether, the rankings might translate into payroll changes. "We don't have strategic plans to greatly increase our staffing," says UCL's vice-provost for research, David Price. "However, we do not anticipate significant — or any — reductions, either."

Ian Leslie, pro-vice chancellor for research at the University of Cambridge, says that the university's winning performance presented no surprises. "We're still at the top," he says. "The major thing is that in reputational terms, at an institutional level, not a great deal has changed for us since 2001. How that turns into money, we'll know in March."

Several institutions declined to ruminate about the ramifications for funding allocation. "It's difficult to say," says Ian Postlethwaite, pro-vice chancellor for research at the University of Leicester. "I think we're all just hanging on to see what money we get." Spokespeople from the University of Newcastle and the University of Glamorgan in Pontypridd, Wales, likewise baulked at speculating on the implications of the rankings.

Could valuable work be put at risk by poor rankings? Trevor Newsom, director of research and regional services for Queen's University Belfast, says that years of research and infrastructure investments have gone unnoticed. Queen's has spent considerable time and money on improving its programmes in areas such as biomedicine and chemistry, he says. In 2004, it invested £25 million in a centre for cancer research. "In terms of its current research output, and the esteem and the nature of the contracts, it is already beginning to show great potential," he says.

Queen's also reconfigured its chemistry programme a decade ago to focus on reducing or eliminating pollution. It opened a new 'green chemistry' lab last year, for example, to work on a £5.25-million contract for Petronas, the Malaysian government's oil and gas corporation. The university had expected its submissions in this field to receive higher ratings.

The new Research Excellence Framework (REF), which will replace the RAE and for which preliminary research evaluations begin this year, is expected to rely more heavily on bibliometrics, such as publication citations, to judge research quality (see Nature 457, 7–8; 2009). Other evaluation criteria and benchmarks are still being developed. The first REF rankings will be released in 2013, with funding allocations in 2014.

Newsom says Queen's will be sure to adjust its portfolio accordingly. "We don't want to be driven by a process," he says. "But the funding that comes through the evaluation exercise is a fundamental and very important part of the university's income." Queen's, he says, cannot afford to simply ignore the ratings.