Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)

The results of the last RAE, published in 2008, provided a welcome endorsement of the ICR’s outstanding research performance.

In the Times Higher Education tables, which are the authoritative interpretation of the data, the ICR came top overall - ranking it as the UK’s leading academic research centre.

Educational organisations’ research was given a 1 to 4 star rating, with the ICR receiving the highest percentage of research assessed as four stars, world leading, in the areas of biological sciences and cancer studies.

We 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), we 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 ICR overall to cancer research both nationally in the UK and internationally, was noted by the Panel as being of the highest level.