The Institute of Cancer Research Named UK’s Top Research Centre
Thursday 18th December
The results of RAE 2008 published on 18th December provided a welcome endorsement of The Institute’s outstanding research performance.
In the Times Higher Education tables, which are the authoritative interpretation of the data, The Institute came top overall - ranking it as the UK’s leading academic research centre.
The coveted independent ranking of the UK’s 132 educational research centres was based on the Higher Education Funding Council’s Research Assessment Exercise.
Educational organisations’ research was given a 1 to 4 star rating, with The Institute receiving the highest percentage of research assessed as four stars, world leading in the areas of biological sciences and cancer studies.
The Institute also came top of the Biological Sciences (Unit of Assessment 14) by a considerable margin.
The Panel noted that the many internationally significant research outputs included a substantial number of world-leading contributions. The distribution of quality levels indicated outstanding strength in each of the research areas.
In Cancer Studies (Unit of Assessment 2), The Institute were ranked equal second.
The Panel’s detailed evaluation of our submission stated that The Institute of Cancer Research returned a large number of outputs that represent significant and internationally-recognised contributions to clinical and translational cancer research. The groups described in the return are strong, and all were noted to be international leaders in their respective fields.
The contribution of The Institute overall to cancer research both nationally in the UK and internationally, was noted by the Panel as being of the highest level.
Professor Peter Rigby, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research says.
“I am delighted by this external validation of the extremely high quality of our research. This is a great tribute to all of my colleagues who work so hard on behalf of cancer patients.”
The review comes as The Institute is about to mark its centenary in 2009.
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All media queries should be sent to Cathy Beveridge: 0207 153 5359 cathy.beveridge@icr.ac.uk
