Excellence
The School of Social Sciences has had an excellent RAE result across all our subject areas. All areas showed significant improvement on the previous RAE.
The School entered 168 staff across five different Units of Assessment and the RAE assessed 59% of their research activity to be at the top two levels of international excellence (3*) or world leading (4*), with 26% in the world leading class
Based on research power, Sociology is confirmed as one of the best in the UK - and the best on the grade point average metric - Politics and Social Anthropology are placed in fourth position; Economics in the top-10; and Philosophy on a healthy trajectory.
Aggregating the results across our five main areas – Sociology, Economics, Politics, Social Anthropology and Philosophy – and comparing these with other UK universities places the School in third position in the UK and one of the leading international research schools in the Social Sciences.
In the last Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) teaching assessment exercise, the School’s discipline areas were rated “excellent” for teaching. The scale of the School, in terms of both staff and student numbers, gives us a unique critical mass: students will find that, regardless how specialised their interest, there is virtually certain to be an expert somewhere in the School able to advise them.