This report is about the distribution of research activity across higher education institutions in the UK.
The analysis is primarily focussed on the growth, volume, impact and diversity of research at subject level. It considers factors such as collaboration and regional distribution, and it considers diversity and similarity at institutional and regional levels.
Research portfolios at the level of the major UK regions are remarkably similar. All regions maintain activity across a broad range of disciplines, and none exhibit a narrowly concentrated profile. However, some structural differences emerge at finer geographic resolution. While some regions combine relatively specialised institutions within a diverse regional research portfolio, others achieve similar levels of diversity through the scale and breadth of a small number of major universities.
Research excellence broadly follows the pattern observed for overall research activity. Although highly cited research is somewhat more concentrated than institutional publication portfolios as a whole, the difference has diminished over time. Institutions that have become more diverse in their overall research activity have generally also become more diverse in the distribution of their highest-impact research. Excellence therefore appears increasingly distributed across a broader range of disciplines within institutions rather than being confined to a few subject areas.