For UK universities, last month was marked by a major event: The Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 results were finally published on December 18, 2014.

The REF is the UK government’s system for assessing the quality of research in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. The REF is important for several reasons. First, it provides accountability for public investment in research and demonstrates the benefits of that investment. Second, the results provide benchmarks and public information about the research performance of universities. Third, the results will be used by the four UK higher education funding bodies to allocate research funding to universities. Finally, the REF – and research output and quality more generally – are important factors for many university rankings.

The REF is an exercise of enormous proportions. For example, during the REF 2014, expert panels analyzed the quality of research submitted by 154 universities, consisting of work by more than 52,000 academics. The overall quality of research was judged to be either 4 stars (world-leading), 3 stars (internationally excellent), 2 stars (recognized internationally), or 1 star (recognized nationally).

As part of the REF 2014, UK law schools were also ranked – with some surprising results!

According to the REF 2014, these are the top 10 UK law schools as ranked by their research output:

1. King’s College London
2. LSE
3. Durham
4. Ulster
5. UCL
5. York
7. Cambridge
8. Leeds
9. Bristol
10. Oxford
10. Warwick
10. Sheffield

The full results can be downloaded here (PDF).

 

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