Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
For further information, please contact Martin Fullerton 
(tel: 028 9025 7693).
The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is a peer review-based benchmarking exercise run every five years or so, most recently in 2001. The outputs of the RAE are used to calculate Quality-related Research (QR) funding. There are three key outputs:
- Quality, on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), with subdivisions at 3 (3a is higher than 3b) and 5 (5* is the highest rating).
- The number of full-time equivalent active research active staff.
- The proportion of total staff submitted as research active.
Both The Queen’s University of Belfast and the University of Ulster achieved higher quality ratings in the most recent exercise than in previous years. For detailed tables of all UK results along with more details of the process of the last exercise, see the RAE 2001 website .
The next RAE will run in 2008. Details are available at the RAE 2008 website .