The UK academic world was in a frenzy yesterday as the results of the Research Assessment Exercise were published. In this process, the work of academic departments is graded on a scale from 4* (‘world leading’) down. It is important for both reputation and revenue, as the results are keenly observed and are used to allocate public research funding.
See the Times Higher for details and the post on HangingTogether by my colleague John MacColl for some context.
The Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester has particular reason to be pleased.
But the RAE also – by design – exposes pockets of excellence.
The university rated as having the greatest cluster of world-leading researchers of any discipline in any university in the UK is Leicester.
It had 65% of its staff rated 4* and 30% 3* – in museum studies. [BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Many UK researchers ‘world class’]