Research excellence
Research excellence is at the heart of our work at Essex and we have
established a global reputation over the last 50 years for the high-quality
of our work.
Our students enjoy their time at Essex because they have the chance to
work with academics who are world-renowned for their research across a huge
range of fields. We believe every student benefits from being part of our
close-knit, research-intensive community.
Top 10 for research in UK
We were ranked ninth for the quality of our research in the most recent
Research Assessment Exercise (RAE, 2008) – the UK’s independent review of the
quality of research at our universities.
Highlights from the RAE include:
- 22 per cent of research
at Essex was rated as ‘world-leading’ and more than 90 per cent recognised
internationally for its quality.
- Essex was ranked as the
UK’s leading university in social sciences with politics and sociology
ranked first, economics third and linguistics fourth nationally.
- Our research reputation
in the humanities was confirmed by outstanding national rankings for history
– ranked second in the UK, art history – ranked ninth in the UK and
philosophy – ranked tenth in the UK.
- Essex Business School
was ranked second in the UK in accounting and finance research.
Read more about
our exceptional RAE performance
Other research strengths
- We are home to
Understanding Society at the internationally-acclaimed
Institute for Social and Economic Research
the world’s largest and most ambitious longitudinal survey finding out how
people really live in Britain.
- Our UK Data
Archive is the UK's largest collection of
digital research data in the social sciences and humanities.
- Our Global Alliance initiative is developing
partnerships with leading universities across the world to build on
complementary research interests.
- Global
Challenges is our
research initiative focussing on four major projects looking to resolve
issues of worldwide significance.
- Our 50-year history of
groundbreaking research of real impact, such as Professor Peter Townsend’s
revolutionary 1979 work on Poverty in the United Kingdom.
- Find out more about
postgraduate
research opportunities at Essex
Research links
Our research is mainly funded by the UK research councils, government
agencies (eg Department of Health, Department of Work and Pensions,
Technology Strategy Board, Joint Information Systems Committee), Ofcom and
the European Commission.
We also receive research funding from UK charitable bodies including
Cancer Research, Deafness Research, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust,
Nuffield Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Royal Society and British
Academy.
Research and knowledge transfer projects have involved partnerships with
many organisations including BT Group, Vodafone, UNESCO, Nokia, Fujitsu,
Alcatel, GlaxoSmithKline, London Aquarium, the Victoria and Albert Museum
and the National Trust
"Essex is consistently ranked in the UK's top ten universities for its
overall research quality. Our long-standing commitment to internationally
excellent research is combined with a strategy that seeks to recruit the
highest-calibre researchers, support our emerging research stars, and build
high-quality collaborative partnerships with targeted institutions around
the world."
Professor David Sanders, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)