Towers of strength

The quality and volume of research throughout British higher education has risen over the past four years, this week's results from the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise show. Former polytechnics and the best research universities have improved their standing, with average ratings increasing overall by almost half a point, and 497 departments being awarded the top 5 or 5-star grades.

The improvement in results is likely to mean departments receiving a grade 1 or 2 will receive no RAE-based money, and those rated 3b will gain only small amounts. It is also unclear whether the 178 departments awarded the top 5-star rating will receive much more than the 294 which gained grade 5s last time.

This year 192 universities and colleges sent 2,896 RAE submissions to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which managed the exercise, compared with 2,700 submissions from 172 institutions in 1992. The number of active researchers whose work was assessed rose by 5,000 to just over 55,000.

Brian Fender, HEFCE chief executive, said: "We congratulate universities and colleges on these results. The real winner is the United Kingdom which is benefitting from a huge range of high-quality work."

Oxford University is now top among the country's universities in The THES's RAE league table of excellence, pushing Cambridge from the position it enjoyed in 1992 into second place. Other rising stars include Goldsmiths College, up 23 places to 26th; Bath University, up to seventh university compared to 20th last time; Essex University, up to 11th place from 17th; Bristol University, rising from 25th to 14th; and Sheffield University, up from 30th to 19th.

Among new universities big improvements were made by Thames Valley University, Napier University, Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Hertfordshire, Sunderland University and Portsmouth University. The top performer among the former polytechnics was once again Sheffield Hallam University.

Scotland showed a dramatic improvement in research performance, with 57 per cent of 5,800 research-active staff in departments rated 4 or better - up from 39 per cent four years ago. Average Scottish ratings rose from 3.25 last time to 3.67 this year, catching up on the UK average of 3.73.

In Wales, the number of departments with grades 5 or 5 star was 21, compared with seven grade 5s in 1992, while the number gaining a grade 4 shot up by 56 per cent. Just 13 found themselves with a grade 1, against 33 four years ago.

Northern Ireland education minister Michael Ancram praised Queen's University of Belfast and the University of Ulster for "significant improvements", including growth in active research staff from 970 to 1,140, and the number of departments rated 4 and above rising from 16 per cent to almost 37 per cent.

In England, increases in numbers of active researchers were concentrated in new universities, where they rose by 45 per cent compared to a rise of 5 per cent in old universities. Five new universities also mustered a total of six grade 5s this time, against the University of Westminster's solitary 5 in 1992.

Bahram Bekhradnia, HEFCE head of policy, said: "That will encourage us in our belief that we are right to carry on working on a discipline-based funding system rather than an institution-based one. New universities would not figure in research funding if we were to restrict ourselves to research universities."

HEFCE meets in January to decide how nearly Pounds 700 million in research funding should be divided up based on the rankings. Money distributed on the basis of the RAE results will account for around 97 per cent of the total research funding pot.