Over £200 million in funding to be given to NI Universities
Thursday, 21 May 2009Employment and Learning Minister, Sir Reg Empey, has announced a significant increase in the funding his Department is giving to Northern Ireland’s universities.
The funding for Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB) and the University of Ulster (UU) for the 2009-10 academic year will be in the form of a block grant covering teaching, learning and research. Between them the universities will receive almost £203million.
Research funding has increased by 7.7%, which is on a par with the highest level of increase for research in the UK.
The Minister said: “This increase in funding is in acknowledgement of the world-class research undertaken by our local universities. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise recognised that 87% of all research activity submitted by the two universities was considered to be of international quality and 14% was judged to be ‘world-leading’. This is an achievement of which we should be justifiably proud.”
He continued: “Research capability is vital for economic growth, competitiveness and the well-being of the community. Through their research activities and the transfer of knowledge, the universities are making a major contribution to the cultural, social and economic life of Northern Ireland and this is particularly important given the current economic climate.”
This funding announcement is in addition to other measures that the Department has taken to help develop innovation in the universities. Last year the Department committed to increase, by 300, the number of PhD research students at local universities by 2010 and also secured a total of £73million capital funding for the universities over the three year period 2008-11.
Notes to Editors:
1. The universities are funded on a block grant basis for their learning & teaching activities and research activities. The funding is linked to the number of students enrolled and the number of staff engaged on research activities.
2. “Research Assessment Exercise 2008: the Outcome” (RAE 2008) is available from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), e-mail publications@hefce.ac.uk. The results are also available on the RAE website
3. The primary purpose of the RAE 2008 is to produce quality profiles for each submission of research activity made by institutions. The four higher education funding bodies (see below) intend to use the quality profiles to determine their grant for research to the institutions which they fund with effect from 2009-10. Any Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the UK that is eligible to receive research funding from one of these bodies is eligible to participate in the exercise.
4. The outcome publication will comprise tabulated overall quality profiles per unit of assessment (UOA) and per institution. Each quality profile will present the proportions, rounded to 5%, of research activity in each submission judged to have met each of the quality levels from Four Star to unclassified. Alongside the quality profile for each submission, the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of Category A staff included in the submission will be published.
5. The full definitions of the quality levels are:
Four star Quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
Three star Quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour, but which nonetheless falls short of the highest standards of excellence.
Two star Quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
One star Quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
6. The RAE was conducted jointly by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DEL). The RAE team, based at the HEFCE offices, managed the exercise on behalf of the four funding bodies.
7. The RAE 2008 uses the same main principles of peer assessment as previous RAEs. However a few significant changes have been introduced:
* the results will be published as a graded profile rather than a fixed seven-point scale. This allows the funding bodies to identify pockets of excellence wherever these might be found and reduces the 'cliff edge' effect, where fine judgements at the grade boundaries can have significant funding impacts;
* a formal two-tiered panel structure has been introduced to ensure greater consistency and international calibration; and
* there is now explicit criteria in each subject to enable the proper assessment of applied, practice-based and interdisciplinary research.
8. Considerable care was taken in the 2008 exercise to ensure that the process was robust and the results were reliable.
9. For the purpose of the RAE 2008 each academic discipline is assigned to one of 67 units of assessment (UOAs). Work submitted to the exercise is assessed by experts, drawn from HEIs and the wider research community. There is a two-tier panel system: 67 sub-panels of experts, one for each UOA, work under the guidance of 15 main panels. Under each main panel are broadly cognate disciplines whose subjects have similar approaches to research. This system provides a strategic overview of the work of the sub-panels and aims to provide a more consistent approach both to setting criteria and to the assessment of work in related fields.
10. Main panels are made up of a chair, the chairs of each of the sub-panels within the main panel area and a number of international and additional members. The international membership of the main panels ensures that international standards are maintained consistently across the exercise. Each sub-panel has a chair and on average about 15 other members who have expertise that covers the full range of research in that subject area.
11. Media queries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 9025 7872. Out of office hours please contact the Duty Press Officer via pager number 07699 715 440 and your call will be returned
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