Lancaster University is ranked joint 1st in UK for Bio-medicine

Bio-medicine, part of Lancaster’s newly launched School of Health and Medicine, has been ranked joint 1st in the UK for research quality in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.

The RAE measures the quality of research conducted in universities and other higher education institutions in the UK against international standards of excellence. This confirms the world-leading status of biomedical & life sciences with 95% of research in this area rated of international quality. The quality of research in health-related social policy is also extremely high, placing Lancaster joint 12th out of 66 universities with 95% of research considered to be international in quality.

Professor Tony Gatrell, Dean of the School of Health & Medicine, congratulated colleagues in Biomedical & Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Research on this outstanding result.

“This is a ringing endorsement of the exceptionally high quality of research undertaken in the School of Health & Medicine, and a wonderful beginning for the new School, only formed in August 2008. I am enormously proud to be Dean of a School that is characterised by research of the highest quality that will, in time, benefit the health of the population in North West England and beyond.”

The School's aim is to produce excellent research that translates scientific and social science findings into practical applications for human and society’s benefit.

Many of the research areas within the school are related to fundamental issues, with major research topics including the study of end-of-life care, disability, mental health, epidemiology, cancer biology, neurodegenerative disease, immunology and microbiology.

Overall 92% of the university’s research is recognised as world leading or internationally significant and some key areas of research are ranked top in the UK.

To work out the overall rankings of Biomedicine, Lancaster University has used a methodology which produces a consolidated score for any institution that made more than one submission within these units of assessment.