Research Income for Law – 2013/14 to 2017/18

ResearchFundingLaw

The Chartered ABS has published a briefing on research income in the field of Law for the period of 2013/14 to 2017/18 using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This is the first Chartered ABS report on Law and we would appreciate your feedback on whether it is useful and if other reports on Law would be valued. Please email ramin.bokaian@charteredabs.org with feedback.

The key findings are summarised below and the full briefing can be found here.

Overall trends

  • Law schools in the UK received a total of £24.5m in research income in 2017/18, an increase of 7% on the previous year and one-third higher than in 2013/14. Research income for Law has increased in three of the last four years.
  • In the last year falls in funding from the Research Councils (-£1.1m) and UK central government (-£300k) were offset by increases from EU government bodies (+£700k), UK-based charities (+£600k) and non-EU other sources (+£1.1m).
  • In 2017/18 UK sources accounted for 65% of all research funding in the subject of Law, EU sources 24% and non-EU sources 11%, with the latter increasing from 6% in 2015/16. The share of funding from all EU sources has declined from the 29% seen four years ago.
  • Research funding from all non-EU international sources amounted to £2.7m in 2017/18, which is 60% higher than the £1.7m received in 2013/14.

Comparison with other subjects

  • During the five year period of analysis Law received an increase in research income of 35% compared to a 22% increase across all subject fields.
  • The proportional increase in research income for Law is higher than for most STEM subjects, with only Civil Engineering seeing larger growth during this period (+49%).
  • If adjusting for inflation Law schools saw a 22% real-term increase in research income over the five year period, compared to 10% across all fields.

Research income by region

  • The total share of research income for Law schools in London and the South-East has declined over the five year period of analysis, from 40% in 2013/14 to 32% in 2017/18. Over the same period the share of income amongst Law schools in the rest of the UK has increased from 60% to 68%.
  • The regions that have increased their share of research income in Law over the five year period are the East of England, the North-West, Northern Ireland, West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside.

Research income by Law schools

  • For the combined period of 2015/16 to 2017/18 the five schools that received the highest amounts of research income were all Russell Group institutions: the University of Edinburgh (£7.1m), the University of Cambridge (£6.4m), the University of Oxford (£4.8m), Queen Mary University of London (£4.3m), and the University of Leeds (£2.8m).
  • Research income for Law shows a tendency towards concentration in a certain group of institutions, with the five schools receiving the highest amounts of research income in the last three years accounting for 36% of total research funding. The ten schools with the highest amounts of research income constitute 53% of the total.