RAE Results
The results of the Research Assessment Exercise came in yesterday.
Liverpool CS got 30% of outputs ranked 4 (world-leading), 45% ranked 3 (not sure what that means) and 25% ranked 2 (nationally important) and none ranked 1.
This gave us an overall score of 3.05 (?!) which puts us 10th in some league table... There was, apparently, champagne available yesterday but I wasn't in the department so didn't get any. I'm told those above Liverpool were Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, Imperial, Nottingham, Southampton, Lancaster and Glasgow (not in that order - I think Cambridge was top overall in CS) but I've not checked and the person who told me was dredging it up from memory.
B. doesn't appear to have the Life Science results yet but Manchester overall (on some league table - and the exciting thing about this RAE seems to be that there are several ways to rank the results so everyone gets a chance to look good) has come third behind Oxford and Cambridge and above Imperial and UCL. Apparently there is some clear water between the top five and the rest of the league table.
This presumably means the madness is now over for another five years...
EDIT: B has just sent me a different League table in which Manchester is joint third with UCL, followed by Edinburgh with Imperial 6th. Overall Liverpool comes out 18th on that table which means, I guess, that Liverpool Computer Science is doing better research-wise than an "average" Liverpool department.
EDIT 2: Just seen my boss who is confidently predicting a reworked league table in the near future in which average score is modified in some way by grant income - presumably a "research value for money" league table. Liverpool CS expects to do well on this because "everyone above us has a lot more money". Manchester, he tells me, is looking forward to a "research power" table in which score is multiplied (in some way) by number of people submitted - they expect to do well on this because they submitted a lot more people than Oxbridge...
Liverpool CS got 30% of outputs ranked 4 (world-leading), 45% ranked 3 (not sure what that means) and 25% ranked 2 (nationally important) and none ranked 1.
This gave us an overall score of 3.05 (?!) which puts us 10th in some league table... There was, apparently, champagne available yesterday but I wasn't in the department so didn't get any. I'm told those above Liverpool were Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, Imperial, Nottingham, Southampton, Lancaster and Glasgow (not in that order - I think Cambridge was top overall in CS) but I've not checked and the person who told me was dredging it up from memory.
B. doesn't appear to have the Life Science results yet but Manchester overall (on some league table - and the exciting thing about this RAE seems to be that there are several ways to rank the results so everyone gets a chance to look good) has come third behind Oxford and Cambridge and above Imperial and UCL. Apparently there is some clear water between the top five and the rest of the league table.
This presumably means the madness is now over for another five years...
EDIT: B has just sent me a different League table in which Manchester is joint third with UCL, followed by Edinburgh with Imperial 6th. Overall Liverpool comes out 18th on that table which means, I guess, that Liverpool Computer Science is doing better research-wise than an "average" Liverpool department.
EDIT 2: Just seen my boss who is confidently predicting a reworked league table in the near future in which average score is modified in some way by grant income - presumably a "research value for money" league table. Liverpool CS expects to do well on this because "everyone above us has a lot more money". Manchester, he tells me, is looking forward to a "research power" table in which score is multiplied (in some way) by number of people submitted - they expect to do well on this because they submitted a lot more people than Oxbridge...