The University Grants Committee has announced that academic research submissions have achieved "world leading" standard under the Research Assessment Exercise 2014, which assesses UGC-funded institutions' research quality.
A panel of international experts found that 12% of the eight UGC-funded institutions' research submissions achieved "world leading" standard, while 34% attained "international excellence" and the remainder were awarded "international standing" or "regional standing".
Noting that nearly half of submissions attained international excellence or above, UGC Chairman Edward Cheng said it was a great pleasure to see institutions achieving such encouraging results.
The assessment exercise covered six years, from October 2007 to September 2013. About 16,500 research outputs submitted by 4,400 eligible academic staff, 220 grant submissions and 230 esteem submissions were assessed.
The assessment results largely affect the research funding allocated to an institution as part of the UGC's block grant.
