PJ Online | News: Eleven pharmacy schools improve research grades

The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7179 p873-877
22-29 December 2001

Eleven pharmacy schools improve research grades

Eleven of the 16 United Kingdom schools of pharmacy have improved the rating of the quality of their research, according to the results of the 2001 research assessment exercise.

Nine schools now have the top-ranking 5 or 5* ratings, including King's College London and Brighton, Portsmouth and Strathclyde universities which have moved up to 5 since the last exercise in 1996. The University of Nottingham slipped back marginally from the top 5* to 5. The assessments are based on information submitted by the schools. This includes details of active research staff, postgraduate studentships, research income and publications produced between 1996 and 2000. To achieve the top rating, more than 50 per cent of the research has to be judged to be of international excellence and the remainder of national excellence.

The ratings are used by the higher education funding bodies to determine research grants starting in 2002–03.

Table 1: Schools of pharmacy research assessment exercise
Institution	2001	1996
Aston	3a	3a
Bath	5*	5
Belfast	4	3b
Bradford	4	3a
Brighton	5	3b
Cardiff	5	5
De Montfort (Leicester)	4	2
King's College London	5	4
Manchester	5*	5
Nottingham	5	5*
Liverpool John Moores	4	1
London	5	5
Portsmouth	5	4
Robert Gordon (Aberdeen)	3b	1
Strathclyde	5	4
Sunderland	3a	2