Our Department has been ranked No.1 at “Units of Assessment (UoA) 28: Social Work and Social Policy” among all sibling universities in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020!
The University Grants Committee conducts the RAE once every six years. It aims to assess research quality of government-funded universities by using international benchmarks to delineate their areas of relative strength and make recommendations for further improvements. Assessment elements and respective weightings in the RAE 2020 were: (i) Research Outputs (70%), (ii) Impact (15%) and (iii) Environment (15%). Each element was rated on a scale from 4* (world leading) to 3* (internationally excellent), 2* (international standing), 1* (limited standing) and unclassified.
Among six universities with UoA on Social Work and Social Policy, we have performed the best in terms of “Overall”, “Research Outputs” and “Impact” (see reference here):
- For “Overall”, we received 27% of 4* while the second and third best performing universities received 20% and 12% of 4* respectively. The sector-wide 4* percentage was 13%. In other words, our 4* percentage was a double of that.
- For “Research Outputs”, quality of publication was assessed. We received 17% of 4* while the second and third best performing universities received 13% and 12% of 4* respectively. For 4* and 3*, our total percentage was 54%, which is again the highest when compared with other universities.
- For “Impact”, contribution and beneficial effects that a university’s research brought to the society beyond academia were assessed. We are the only university which has outstandingly received 100% of 4*. The second best performing university received 33% of 4* and 67% of 3* while the third best performing university received 100% of 3*.
Here is a summary of our RAE results:
Source: Page 29 at https://www.ugc.edu.hk/doc/eng/ugc/rae/2020/result/rae2020resultsuoa.pdf
We deeply appreciate our faculty members for their commitment to strive for research excellence!