Research Assessment Exercise

The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was an exercise undertaken approximately every 5 years on behalf of the four UK higher education funding councils (HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW, DELNI) to evaluate the quality of research undertaken by British higher education institutions. RAE submissions from each subject area (or unit of assessment) are given a rank by a subject specialist peer review panel. The rankings are used to inform the allocation of quality weighted research funding (QR) each higher education institution receives from their national funding council. Previous RAEs took place in 1986, 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2001. The most recent results were published in December 2008. It was replaced by the Research Excellence Framework in 2014.

Various media have produced league tables of institutions and disciplines based on the 2008 RAE results. Different methodologies lead to similar but non-identical rankings.

History

The first exercise of assessing of research in Higher Education in the UK took place in 1986 under the Margaret Thatcher Government. It was conducted by the University Grants Committee under the chairmanship of the Cambridge mathematician Peter Swinnerton-Dyer. The purpose of the exercise was to determine the allocation of funding to UK Universities at a time of tight budgetary restrictions. The committee received submissions of research statements from 37 subject areas ("cost centres") within Universities, along with five selected research outputs. It issued quality rankings labelled "outstanding", "above average", "average" or "below average". The research funding allocated to Universities (called "quality-related" funding) depended on the quality ratings of the subject areas. According to Swinnerton-Dyer, the objective was to establish a measure of transparency to the allocation of funding at a time of declining budgets.