The Research Assessment Exercise is the British government’s peer review exercise for allocation of research funding (www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2008/01/).

In the 2008 exercise, Oxford had the highest number of staff submitted for Law with the full-time equivalent of 103.5, 25% more than any other university. The results of the exercise show that on the RAE assessments, substantially more top-rated research activity went on in Law at Oxford from 2001-7, than in any other university in the UK. Oxford rated third in the proportion of research activity that attracted the highest ratings. LSE and UCL were rated first and second in that respect, but they submitted fewer than half as many legal scholars as Oxford. To see the proportions of funding for Law that we expect the Higher Education Funding Council to use in allocating government research funding among British law faculties, go to http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~jwo/raeviewer/city/, click on "38 Law", then Scale by "QR funding", then Order by "GPA (7-3-1-0)".

Release date: Thursday 18 December 2008