Each year the government spends around 1 billion of public funds on research in universities and colleges, distributed by the higher education funding councils. The councils must ensure this research is of high quality and that as well as extending knowledge it meets the needs of commerce and industry. This leaflet describes how the quality of the research in UK universities is assessed and how the results relate to business. The panels rate the quality of research against international and national excellence benchmarks.
Institutions doing the best research get a larger proportion of the funds available.
The funding councils use the results of the RAE to allocate finance to HEIs doing high quality research. HEIs use that money to fund the staff, equipment and buildings required to maintain their research base. In turn this enables them to undertake projects that meet the needs of commerce and industry and to engage in collaborative research. These outputs include patents and other intellectual property rights, designs, new products and prototypes, and commercial and technical reports. Mechanisms have been introduced to enable confidential research, including commercially sensitive work, to be included in the assessment process.