Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine REF2014 Results

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the current framework exercise, developed by the UK higher education funding bodies, to provide accountability for public investment in research and to inform the selective allocation of these funds. Higher Education Institutions were invited to make submissions to the first REF, which has replaced the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), in November 2013.

The Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine’s REF2014 return included 384 members of staff (65 more staff than our RAE2008 submission) against seven Units of Assessment (UoAs).

Executive Dean, Professor Simon Howell commented " The outstanding results achieved by Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine within the context of the very strong Health Schools’ overall performance, has made a significant contribution to the improved performance by King’s compared to the 2008 RAE outcomes.'"

The results are summarised below:

Summary of results:

* the total number of King’s staff submitted to UoA 3b was 43 (40.8 FTE), including staff from other faculties.

** the total number of King’s staff submitted to UoA 5 was 80 (73.8 FTE), including staff from other faculties.

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Detailed results:

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Summary of ranking:

The Grade Point Average represents an average score (out of four) for the submission to a unit of assessment and is derived by multiplying the percentage of the submission at each of the levels (4*, 3*, 2*, 1*) by the number of the star ranking and dividing by 100.

The Quality Index is similar to the GPA but gives an additional weighting to the proportion of research at the higher star level. The index that the College has used is % 4* x 9, % 3* x 3, divided by 9. Different league tables may use different proportions for this.

The Power Ranking uses the quality index to derive a score relative to the other submissions. The Quality Index is multiplied by the full time equivalent submitted and is then divided by the FTE of the largest submission.

For detailed comment and analysis of each of the Faculty’s results, please visit the following pages:

• UoA 1 - Clinical Medicine
  Ranked first in the United Kingdom for Clinical Medicine, in terms of the proportion of our overall submission that was ranked 4* or 3*.
  
  
• UoA 2 - Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care
  Ranked 6^th in the United Kingdom in terms of the proportion of the submission ranked at 4* and 3*.
  
  
• UoA 3b - Subjects Allied to Medicine: Pharmacy, Nutritional Sciences and Women’s Health
  Overall, this submission is ranked 2^nd of all 94 submissions in terms of Power.
  
  
• UoA 3c - Subjects Allied to Medicine: Nursing and Midwifery and Palliative Care
  90% of overall activity rated 4* or 3* ‘world leading’ or 'internationally excellent’.
  
  
• UoA 5 - Biological Sciences
  Overall, ranked 10^th of 44 submissions in terms of Power Ranking.
  
• UoA 15 - General Engineering
  Ranked first in terms of the overall proportion of our submissions ranked at 4* or 3*.
  
• UoA 26 - Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism
  Overall, ranked 6^th for both our Grade Point Average and Quality Index ranking of the 51 submissions in this UoA.

  ¹ The needs of patients, their carers and the public are changing; more people are living with multiple long-term conditions, technology is transforming clinical relationships and advances in genomics are enabling personalised care. Working with our partner NHS Trusts we seek a fully integrated approach based on strong basic science discoveries and innovation, which enables rapid translation into new therapies and improvements in care. The Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine and the other King's Health Faculties, with a range of health disciplines which is unique amongst the top five UK universities, is well-placed to cut across traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries, and to provide the research-led educational and healthcare leadership required to transform patient and population health.