Imperial College returns to top of the Research Council Grants Table
Making it rain with the monies
Imperial College has returned to the top of the league table for research council income for the year 2013-14. It is the fourth time in the last five years that the College has topped the table, having been in third place for the year 2012-2013.
In this edition of the league table, Imperial was awarded £114 million, an increase of £11 million on 2012-13. This meant that the College was one of only ten institutions that saw an increase of more than £10 million.
University College London (UCL), who were last year’s leaders, saw their value of awards fall by 42 percent. Cambridge saw their value diminish by 45 percent, as it fell to fifth in the rankings.
Donal Bradley, Vice-Provost (Research), said that he was “delighted to see the dedication and hard work of our staff paying off in what remains a difficult funding climate”.
Imperial was successful in only 29 percent of its applications, which, when compared to other Universities in the top ten, is quite low. However, this means that Imperial’s value of awards was significantly higher than other Universities in the list.
Overall, the number of applications went down from the College by 19 percent – the third largest decline in the table. On the whole there has been a large decline in the number of applications. There were nine percent fewer applications overall in 2013-14, with only seven institutions actually submitting more applications than in the previous year.
Despite the drop in numbers of applications, the success rate has also dropped across the board. Only seven out of the top 27 institutions have seen their success rates increase. Imperial’s rate is unchanged from 2012-13.
Behind Imperial in this year’s table were Oxford, who had £94 million, UCL with £78 million and Manchester with £58 million. Cambridge, Bristol, Edinburgh, King’s College London, Southampton and Nottingham complete the top ten.
