The Faculty of Science is the largest Faculty within the University, with around 2,800 undergraduates, 900 postgraduates, and over 800 staff. It consists of the Schools of Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Geographical Sciences, and the Departments of Earth Sciences, Experimental Psychology, Mathematics and Physics. The individual successes of these departments have played a major part in the University of Bristol's excellent reputation.
Science has established good cross-departmental and cross-faculty links in teaching and research, and offer an outstanding intellectual environment for both its staff and its undergraduate and postgraduate students. Research Centres within the Faculty are the Glaciology, Behavioural Biology, Organic Geochemistry, Environmental & Geophysical Flows, Interface Analysis, IT and Law, the Laboratory for Advanced Computation, and Quantum Information. There is also BRIDGE (Bristol Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment) in Geographical Sciences, and COGNIT (Cognition and Information Technology Research Centre) in Experimental Psychology. The very successful Molecular Recognition Centre links Science with the Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences particularly well; the Quantum Information Group links Science with the Faculty of Engineering; and the School of Geographical Sciences provides an important interaction with the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. There are strong and successful cross-faculty interactions in Climate Change, Cognition, Interface Analysis, Nanotechnology and Neuroscience.
Departments in the Faculty have also been successful in external links and awards. The Earth Sciences department is host to the NERC QUEST Centre on quantifying earth systems processes, and the Mathematics department is working in partnership with GCHQ on the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research. As well, the School of Chemistry was recently awarded one of HEFCE's Centres of Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Bristol ChemLabS. The Faculty is also involved in the Academic Innovation Centre (AIC) at Emersons Green, a joint venture company set up by Bristol and Bath Universities, which will provide accommodation and business support for high-tech companies spun out from the Universities' research.
We made returns in 9 areas - Units of Assessment (UoAs) in RAE parlance:
Two thirds of the Faculty’s research activity was rated at the highest 4* or 3* levels (“world leading” or “internationally excellent”) and 95% at least “internationally recognised” (2* or better). See http://www.bris.ac.uk/rae/results.html for a listing of all Bristol results by UoA.
Our submission to RAE2008 included a much increased number of staff - up by over 40% - compared with 2001 (the date of the last RAE). Many of the staff returned at a relatively early stage in their career. Our performance therefore reflects an exceptional depth of talent, future capacity for development and environment for world leading research.
Top 12 UK Science Faculties RAE 2008 a
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Institution c |
Mean GPA d |
Rank |
Units e |
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University of Oxford |
2.927 |
1 |
9 |
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University of Cambridge |
2.912 |
2 |
9 |
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University of Bristolb |
2.848 |
3 |
9 |
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Imperial College London |
2.833 |
4 |
6 |
|
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University of Nottingham |
2.769 |
5 |
8 |
|
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University of Sheffield |
2.768 |
6 |
9 |
|
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University of Durham |
2.760 |
7 |
9 |
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Birkbeck College |
2.759 |
8 |
3 |
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University of St Andrews |
2.759 |
9 |
8 |
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University College London |
2.758 |
10 |
9 |
|
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University of Edinburgh |
2.752 |
11 |
9 |
|
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University of Manchester |
2.749 |
12 |
9 |
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Notes |
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a "Science" is taken to be the nine UoAs: 14A, 17,18,19,20,21,22,32,44, as in Bristol |
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b Bristol volume for UoA 22 (Applied Maths) has been reduced to 50% to Science (and the other 50% attributed to Engineering) |
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c Only institutions with at least 3 “Science” UoAs returned are included in list |
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d Mean Grade Point Average (GPA) value is calculated according to the amounts of 4, 3, 2 and 1* activity for each UoA weighted by the number of staff whose work was evaluated. |
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e number of UoAs entered within Bristol Science remit |
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