Consultation Paper CP 2/96
Funding Method for Research
To Heads of HEFCE-funded Institutions
Heads of DENI-funded Universities
Of interest to those responsible for Research and Finance
Reference CP 2/96
Publication Date July 1996
Response by Monday 4 November 1996
Enquiries to Alice Frost Tel 0117 931 7123
E-mail a.frost@hefce.ac.uk
Executive Summary
1. The Council is reviewing its current method for funding research, introduced in 1992. The review will take account of changes in the higher education (HE) sector and in national policy. The new method will be used alongside the quality ratings from the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).
2. This consultation paper invites comment on the Council's proposals for the new method. Responses are sought on:
a. The method for setting the quality-related research funding (QR) allocated to different subjects (the subject quanta).
b. The method for distributing the subject quanta (the degree of selectivity and the volume measures).
c. The method for allocating any successor to the funds provided to develop research potential (DevR).
d. Whether formula capital funding should in future be retained as a separate grant funding line, or whether it should be incorporated into recurrent funding.
3. The Council will make final decisions on the new method and its translation into funding in December. In particular, it will decide the degree of selectivity in distributing funds. This is likely to be no less than at present.
4. Responses are requested by 4 November 1996. The Council will announce its new method for funding research in January 1997, and intends to adopt it from 1997-98.
Introduction
5. The current method for funding research was introduced in October 1992, following extensive consultation, and has been used to allocate the Council's funds for research since 1993-94. The main features of the Council's current method are described in Annex A, and can be summarised as follows:
a. The Council allocates nearly all funds for research (around 95 per cent) by reference to research quality (QR). It also allocates funds to recognise and encourage generic research (GR), and to develop potentially excellent research in institutions not previously funded for this purpose (DevR).
b. For QR, it distributes money between subjects (the subject quanta). It then distributes money within quanta according to quality and volume. Quality is determined by ratings in periodic RAEs, to which a multiplier is applied for funding purposes (currently Q minus 1 where Q is the RAE rating). The volume measures used are research active staff, research fellows and assistants, research students and charitable income, to which are attached individual weights.
6. In 1992 the Council committed itself to review the method. Since then there have been a number of changes in national policy and in the HE sector. A review is timely now both because of these changes, and so that any new method can be used alongside the quality ratings from the 1996 RAE.
7. The Council has commissioned a number of background studies (described briefly at Annex B) as part of this review:
a. `A Review of Volume Indicators', by Professor Ewan Page, former Vice-Chancellor of Reading University.
b. `A Study of Selectivity', by Segal Quince Wicksteed (SQW) Ltd.
c. `A Review of the Technology Foresight Programme (TFP) Priorities and Quanta', by Professor Derek Burke, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.
8. The reports by Professor Page and Professor Burke and the summary of the SQW report will be accessible on the World Wide Web http://www.hefce.ac.uk/), and a printed volume containing all the full reports, price £7.00, will be available from: External Relations Department, HEFCE, Northavon House, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QD. (Tel: 0117 931 7438/7339; Fax: 0117 931 7463; e-mail: hefce@hefce.ac.uk).
9. The Council will decide on the new method for funding research in December. In particular, it will determine what degree of selectivity to adopt in its use of RAE ratings.
10. The Council will review the future of the RAE in spring 1997.
The Nature of the Council's Funding for Research
11. The main purposes of the Council's grant for research are:
a. To provide for the research infrastructure in universities (including academic staff salaries), and thereby:
i. To form part of the dual support system whereby public funds for basic and strategic research are provided through Funding Councils and Research Councils. Under the dual support arrangements introduced in 1992, the Council's funds cover that part of the costs of permanent academic staff, premises and central computing required for Research Council projects. All other project costs, including a contribution to the indirect costs, are met by the Research Councils.
ii. To enable institutions to undertake collaborative research with industry, charities and other users by contributing to infrastructure costs.
b. To cover most of the costs of basic research undertaken by universities. This forms the foundation for strategic and applied work, much of which is supported by other Government funds (from Research Councils and Government departments), and by charities, industrial and commercial organisations and the EU.
c. To contribute to the substantial fixed costs of postgraduate research education, particularly staff, premises, equipment, libraries and other essential facilities.
12. The Council provides a block grant, which institutions can use at their discretion. They must account for their use of research funds in annual reports to the Council.
Principles of Funding for Research
13. The Council applies a number of principles in allocating funds for research:
a. Quality and selectivity. To make best possible use of public money, the Council allocates funding selectively according to international and national standards of excellence in research as assessed through RAEs.
b. Balance. The Council aims to balance various objectives in the light of available resources. It seeks to maintain a broad base of research and training across the subject areas in which research is undertaken, and to encourage research potential and the development of new and interdisciplinary areas of work. It seeks to play its part fully in the dual support system, and to meet its special responsibilities for the arts and humanities which do not benefit from that system.
c. Plurality. The Council's allocations build on the advantages of having a range of funding sources, and seek to complement rather than duplicate the aims of other funding agents.
d. Partnership. The Council seeks to allocate its funds in ways which are consistent with institutions' own research missions and good management practices, and in sympathy with priorities for research determined by institutions and their academic staff.
e. National needs. The Council aims to meet national needs for research in ways which are consistent with its role and the nature of its funding for research. It has had particular regard to the policies for science, engineering and technology (SET) in the 1993 White Paper `Realising our Potential', and in successive Competitiveness White Papers.
Characteristics of a Funding Method for Research
14. The new funding method for research should be consistent with the Council's mission and with the principles described above. It should also exhibit the following characteristics:
a. Competition. All HEIs should be eligible to receive funds if they meet qualifying criteria.
b. Diversity. The funding method should encourage institutions to maintain the distinct characteristics of their particular research missions.
c. Stability and Continuity. Long lead times are often required to conduct successful research, so the method should give institutions enough confidence in their longer-term funding for research to allow them to plan appropriately.
d. Vision and Dynamism. The method should allow the Council to look forward and to allocate funds flexibly to avoid ossification in the research base. However, flexibility should be balanced by the need for stability.
e. Transparency and workability. It should be possible to see how the method works and it should command the confidence of HEIs. Administration costs should be in proportion with the sums allocated and the outcomes achieved. The method should not replicate procedures for allocating other public funds for research, but should work in sympathy with them. The Council should ensure that definitions of data required for funding purposes are clear, and consistently interpreted by HEIs, and that data on which allocations are based are auditable and, where possible, public.
Proposals on the Method for 1997-98 Onwards
QR
15. The Council needs to decide:
a. How to distribute the money available for QR between subjects (setting the subject quanta).
b. How to distribute the quanta between institutions.
Setting the quanta
16. Until now the Council has based the subject quanta on those inherited from the UFC (to which PCFC funds for research were added). It now plans to establish principles which will determine the future distribution of money between subjects and wishes to consult on options.
17. The priorities accorded to subject areas by institutions themselves should have a significant influence on the Council's distribution of funds. This is appropriate given that the Council provides a block grant, and because its funds underpin research for which institutions win the support of other funding agents. The quanta inherited from the UFC were based on information about institutional expenditure, which reflected relative costs and the levels of research volume between subjects decided by universities themselves.
18. The Council proposes to establish a base value for the amount provided for each subject, and to apply a policy weighting where appropriate.
19. To set the base value, the Council could first determine a relative cost per subject and apply this to a measure of volume for that subject, scaled to the total available. To avoid unjustifiable complexity and the possibility that institutions might migrate their research to higher cost weighted areas, three broad bands of cost weights would be used. These are: part laboratory-based; laboratory-based and clinical; and mainly library-based. Cost weights would be calculated by the Council from aggregate financial data from the sector on central and departmental expenditure. Individual subjects (the Council's units of assessment) would be assigned to cost bands as at Annex C.
20. In the light of responses to this consultation, the Council would set the cost weights in December using the most up to date financial information. These cost weights would then be updated periodically.
21. To make the system for setting quanta as simple as possible, the volume indicator would be the number of research active staff, as defined and counted for the volume measures used to distribute the quanta (see paragraphs 34-38).
22. The Council invites comment on its proposals that:
a. The base level quanta should be established, based on relative cost and volume.
b. Three cost weights (part laboratory-based, laboratory-based and clinical, and mainly library-based) should be established, and units of assessment should be assigned to cost weights as at Annex C.
c. The volume indicator should be the number of research active staff, as defined for the volume measures used in distributing the quanta. (See paragraphs 34-38 below).
23. The factors discussed above reflect past decisions and activities. The Council also wishes to look forward and be able to shape the distribution of funds, ensuring that the overall balance of distribution fulfils its objectives and responds to national priorities. It therefore wishes to include a policy factor in setting the quanta which will allow it to influence the distribution between subjects, based on national needs and international standing.
24. Many other countries are currently reviewing their methods for allocating funds across subject areas, particularly as public funding for research is increasingly limited. One of the strategies being adopted in the USA and Canada is to focus funds on subject areas where they reach international standards of quality, or can be identified internationally as operating at the leading edge.
25. As far as national needs are concerned, in the past the Council has primarily reflected institutional priorities for subject areas and avenues for research. This avoided duplicating the work of the Research Councils. In future the Council proposes to look first at whether institutions themselves are responding to national needs. However, it may also wish to reinforce institutional decisions or to anticipate areas of need.
26. In developing judgements on national needs and international standing, the Council would draw upon the expertise of peer and merit review bodies in the UK, including the Research Councils, and learned societies here and overseas. Among other factors which the Council will take into account in determining national priorities is the study by Professor Burke of the mapping of TFP priorities to the quanta.
27. The Council invites comment on its proposals that:
a. It should include a policy factor that will contribute to determining the subject quanta.
b. That policy factor should reflect judgements on national needs and international standing.
28. It will take a little time to develop robust judgements about national needs and international standing, and these are unlikely to be available before the 1998-99 funding round. In 1997-98, therefore, to guard against fluctuations in funding that might harm the research base, the Council will moderate the results of the method for setting the base quanta. It will not apply a policy factor until 1998-99.
Distributing the quanta
29. Once the quanta have been set, the Council takes into account quality and volume in distributing them. It proposes to continue doing so.
30. The Council has limited funds for research and, like the UFC and the UGC before it, has chosen to allocate them selectively. Its purpose is to direct funds particularly to institutional groups which carry out high quality research, thus enabling them to continue and expand their activities. Currently the Council provides four times as much QR funding to a unit rated five in the RAE than to a two-rated unit; a one-rated unit gains no funding.
31. As part of its review, the Council wanted to establish whether it has obtained the best value for the nation by its selective distribution of research funds. It therefore commissioned SQW Ltd to study the impacts of past policy. A major conclusion of that study is that the policy has allowed institutions funded by the Council to free gifted researchers to undertake high quality work of international importance. The policy has also prompted institutions to give higher priority to planning and strategic development of research. On the other hand, the report also reveals that institutions receiving only small sums from the Council have been very successful in obtaining funds from other sponsors, particularly for applied work, which tends to be focused in interdisciplinary and new subject areas.
32. The Council intends to make final decisions on these issues in December, following this consultation and a thorough appraisal of the implications of the 1996 RAE results. However, as a result of the review so far, it believes that the degree of selectivity in distributing funds for research should be no less than now.
33. The Council invites comments on the degree of selectivity it should adopt in allocating funds for QR.
34. The Council has reviewed the volume measures which it uses to distribute quanta in the light of Professor Page's report. This concluded that data on research active staff, which are validated through the RAE and are therefore robust, should be the sole measure of volume for determining allocations. However, it recognised the drawbacks of such an approach - in particular that volume measures would be fixed for several years between RAEs - and recommended ways of tightening the definitions of the other volume measures. The Council believes that a system based only on research active staff identified in the RAE would not be sufficiently sensitive to change in the sector. It therefore proposes to continue to use the minor volume measures (research fellows and assistants, postgraduate research students and income from charities) as well as research active staff.
35. In response to the Page report, the Council has refined the definitions of volume measures and given additional guidance to institutions to ensure that data returns are consistent and accurate. It has also adopted a new method for counting postgraduate research students to ensure that it includes only those contributing to the volume of research. The Council proposes to maintain its present definitions and to audit data returns periodically to ensure that funding allocations are soundly based.
36. The report also highlighted the fact that inclusion of charitable income as one of the volume measures resulted in double-counting (both income from charities, and the staff and students associated with grants, are reflected in volume measures). The Council has therefore reviewed the need to include charitable income as a separate volume measure.
37. The Council cannot explicitly cover the overheads for charitable grants and projects because its resources do not change in line with them. However, reflecting charitable income in the volume measure does ensure that money is distributed to institutions with such income, and they can use it to provide some infrastructure. Although charities are not part of the publicly-funded dual support system, the Council believes that there is a case for special treatment. It therefore proposes to continue including charitable income as one of the volume measures.
38. To reflect change in the sector, the Council proposes to continue updating the volume measures annually as far as possible. Until now this has not been possible for numbers of research active staff because they have been returned and assessed within an RAE. The Council has considered whether to record the transfers of research active staff from one institution to another between RAE and to transfer funding in line with this. It has concluded that any such measures would be unduly costly to administer. However, it proposes that the minor volume factors should continue to be updated annually.
39. The Council invites comment on its proposals that:
a. The volume measures used in distributing money within quanta should be numbers of research active staff, research fellows, research assistants and research students, as currently defined and counted.
b. The volume measures should also include charitable income.
c. Information on all measures except research active staff should be collected annually to inform funding and, as part of this, definitions should be reviewed and data audited as necessary.
40. The Page report pointed out that some volume measures could be increased more easily than others, and institutions might seek to expand such measures only to increase their income, thereby distorting the research base. The Council wishes to minimise such a possibility and therefore proposes that the proportion of QR attributable to each of the volume measures should be fixed in broad terms between RAEs. It would achieve this by setting the weights attached to different volume measures annually, in the light of the latest data on volume.
41. The Council invites comment on its proposal that:
a. The proportion of QR attributable to each of the volume measures should be kept broadly static.
42. The report of the review of postgraduate education, chaired by Professor Martin Harris, made recommendations about the account taken of postgraduate research students in the Council's funding. Consultations are taking place on this report, the results of which will be available to the Council in December when it considers the future method for funding research.
DevR
43. In 1993, the Council introduced DevR to encourage the development of research activity in institutions which had demonstrated research potential but which had not previously received significant research funding. The Council announced then that it did not expect DevR to continue beyond the following RAE. It also expected institutions to use DevR funds selectively themselves to bring on promising areas of research.
44. The Council's review of selectivity demonstrated the importance of continuing to develop research potential, and the need to balance this against the benefits of selective allocation of research funds. The Council will decide on any successor to DevR in December, and wishes to consult now on the form it might take.
45. One option would be to reward those who have used DevR funds successfully and achieved higher ratings in the 1996 RAE than in the 1992 exercise. The method for allocating DevR would be based on the rate of change in assessment ratings, and would thus to some extent reflect value for money in the use of Council funds.
46. Another option would be to focus DevR on applied and other user-related research. This is identified in the SQW report as a particular area of strength of the former PCFC sector. Such a measure would reinforce the distinct research missions of these institutions. The method for allocating DevR could then be a variant on the former CR, allocating funds in proportion to contract income from users of research. The Council would also wish to apply a quality multiplier (from RAE ratings).
47. The Council proposes to continue to limit any successor to DevR to institutions which previously received only limited funding for research.
48. The Council invites comment on its proposal that:
a. Any successor to DevR should be targeted either:
i. To reward improvements in quality.
ii. Or to reflect success in attracting external income, moderated by a quality multiplier.
GR
49. In 1994, in response to the White Paper 'Realising our Potential', the Council introduced GR, allocating funds in proportion to the external income from contracts which left the intellectual property and publication rights of the research with the institution. The Council intends to review GR in full in 1999, when its effects can be determined, and to monitor it annually. The Council has therefore decided to make no change at this time.
Formula Capital Funding
50. The Council is considering whether formula capital funding should be retained as a separate grant or instead be rolled into recurrent funding. This would mean distributing the money for formula capital according to the Council's recurrent funding methods. This would be a logical development of the Council's decision to give institutions freedom to vire between their recurrent and formula capital funding from the academic year 1996-97.
51. Relevant considerations include:
a. The fact that formula capital funding is only a small percentage of formula funding (6 per cent in 1996-97). The planned reductions in the Council's indicative capital allocation mean that in future years the proportion is likely to decrease further.
b. Nearly all the sector's capital requirements will in future need to be financed from annual surpluses, reserves or private finance - either ordinary borrowing or PFI. Institutions' ability to pay will therefore depend on their current or accumulated income streams. Rolling formula capital allocations into recurrent funding simply recognises this reality.
c. Most formula capital funding relates to equipment, and much of this expenditure is in its nature close to recurrent expenditure.
52. Formula capital funding combines two grants which until 1995-96 were separate allocations: equipment and estate formula funds. Both equipment and estate formula funds are calculated according to formulae made up of three elements: a fixed floor provision, a teaching-related element, and a research-related element. In both formulae, the ratio of the teaching-related to research-related elements is 70:30. The floor elements are £11,000 in the case of equipment grant and £20,000 in the case of estate formula funding.
53. If the Council were to incorporate formula capital into recurrent funding, the money would need to be divided between teaching and research. The split could be in proportion to the T and R components of formula capital recurrent funding (70 per cent for teaching, 30 per cent for research), or in line with the current split for recurrent funding ( roughly 78:22), or a compromise between the two (eg 75:25). Each element would then be allocated as part of the relevant recurrent funding model.
54. The Council invites comments on:
a. Whether formula capital funding as a separate funding stream should be abandoned and incorporated into recurrent funds?
b. If it is agreed that formula capital funding should be incorporated into recurrent funds, how to apportion between T and R?
c. Whether a floor provision element should be retained to protect small institutions?
Comments
55. Comments and discussion are invited on the analysis and any of the issues offered in this paper. Responses are sought, in particular, on the following:
58. For QR, the method for setting quanta:
a. The base level quanta should be established, based on relative cost and volume.
b. Three cost weights (part laboratory-based, laboratory-based and clinical, and mainly library-based) should be established, and units of assessment should be assigned to cost weights, as at Annex C.
c. The volume indicator should be the number of research active staff, as defined for the volume measures used in distributing the quanta.
d. The Council should include a policy factor that will contribute to determining the subject quanta.
e. That policy factor should reflect judgements on national needs and international standing.
57. Selectivity
a. The Council invites comments on the degree of selectivity it should adopt in allocating funds for QR.
58. For QR, the method for distributing quanta:
a. The volume measures used in distributing money within quanta should be numbers of research active staff, research fellows, research assistants and research students, as currently defined and counted.
b. The volume measures should also include charitable income.
c. Information on all measures except research active staff should be collected annually to inform funding and, as part of this, definitions should be reviewed and data audited as necessary.
d. The proportion of QR attributable to each of the volume measures should be kept broadly static.
e. Any successor to DevR should be targeted either:
i. To reward improvements in quality.
ii. Or to reflect success in attracting external income, moderated by a quality multiplier.
59. For Formulaic Capital
a. Whether formula capital funding as a separate funding stream should be abandoned and incorporated into recurrent funds?
b. If it is agreed that formula capital funding should be incorporated into recurrent funds, how to apportion between T and R?
c. Whether a floor provision element should be retained to protect small institutions?
60. Comments and responses should be sent to:
Alice Frost
HEFCE
Northavon House
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol BS 16 1QD
by 4 November 1996.
Annex A
Current HEFCE Method for Funding Research
1. Most of the Council's research funds (around 95 per cent) are allocated selectively through QR, which rewards quality in research as judged in periodic Research Assessment Exercises (RAEs). The Council also allocates funds through GR and DevR.
QR
2. For QR, the Council first distributes the money available between subjects - the subject quanta. The quanta are then distributed to institutions according to RAE ratings and volume measures.
Quanta
3. The quanta reflect the units of assessment used in the RAE. For the period 1993-94 to 1996-97 the Council has operated 72 quanta; from 1997-98 it will operate 69 quanta.
4. The present distribution of money between subject quanta has historical origins, reflecting the relative costs and research volume in different subjects in the former UFC sector. The distribution has been disturbed by the dual support transfer (the transfer of £150M from the Higher Education Funding Councils to the Research Councils, which affected physics in particular), and by the disproportionate expansion of research active staff in some subject areas (such as business studies, and art and design).
5. In 1994-95 the Council decided to move the subject quanta into three families (clinical; science and technology; and non-science and technology and education), so that the rate of funding per unit of volume was within plus or minus 20 per cent of the average in each family.
6. In 1995-96 the Council decided to narrow the band to plus or minus 15 per cent. The volume factors for setting the quanta have been the same as the volume measures for distributing sums within quanta. These are described below.
Distribution within quanta
7. The sums within quanta are distributed to institutions according to RAE quality ratings, which are multiplied by volume measures. Submissions to the RAE in units of assessment were given ratings of 1-5 in the 1992 RAE. For the 1996 RAE the rating scale will be: 1,2, 3(a), 3(b), 4, 5, 5*.
8. Currently, the ratings from the 1992 RAE are translated into funding by applying the multiplier Q-1 (where Q is the RAE rating), which reflects the degree of selectivity required by the Council. As a result, a five rated department receives four times the funds of a two-rated department for any given volume of research in that subject.
9 The volume measures used to distribute the quanta are:
Research active staff - weighted at 1.0
Research assistants and research fellows - weighted at 0.1
Research students - weighted at 0.15
Charitable income (in units of £25,000, as a staff equivalent) - weighted at 0.05
10. By far the largest part of the volume measure is accounted for by academic staff (around 75 per cent). The numbers of research active staff are frozen between RAEs, but the Council collects annual data on the other (minor) volume measures through its research activity surveys.
11. The Council has this year introduced a new system of counting the numbers of postgraduate research students used in its volume measure (for the research funding method only). For previous funding allocations, students in all years of their programme were counted; but for 1996-97 the following multipliers were used to obtain a count of postgraduate students (before applying the overall weighting of 0.15):
QR Volume Measure: Count of postgraduate research students
| Year of postgraduate programme | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight applied to head count of full-time students | 0 | 1.75 | 1.75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Weight applied to head count of part-time students | 0 | 0 | 0.875 | 0.875 | 0.875 | 0.875 | 0 |
12. Until 1996-97 the Council applied a cap on the total amount of funding through QR for each institution, so that the year on year increase could be no more than 15 per cent.
GR
13. Until 1995 the Council allocated a small amount of resources as CR, in proportion to the amount of contract research income generated. In 1994 it allocated £10M as GR (and £20M a year thereafter, in place of CR) in proportion to external income from contracts which left the intellectual property and the publication rights for the research with the institution - effectively a subset of CR. The Council has audited a selection of GR returns annually as part of a more general monitoring process.
DevR
14. DevR was established in 1993 to reward research potential in institutions newly eligible for the Council's research funding; £16M per annum has been allocated since then. DevR is only available to institutions from the former PCFC sector, and for units which achieved a rating of 2 or above in the 1992 RAE. It is allocated on the basis of a development plan and numbers of research active staff.
Annex B
`A Review of Volume Indicators' by Professor Ewan Page, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading
Professor Ewan Page was commissioned by HEFCE to undertake an audit of the numbers of research students and assistants returned by institutions to HEFCE's 1995 Research Activity Survey. The report of the study draws conclusions on: the accuracy of the information returned by institutions; the robustness of definitions and processes so as to ensure consistency of interpretation and similar returns of data; and the usefulness of the volume measures employed by the Council in general, in terms both of meeting the Council's objectives and of their operability.
`A Study of Selectivity' by Segal Quince Wicksteed (SQW) Ltd
Segal Quince Wicksteed (SQW) Ltd consultants were commissioned by HEFCE to undertake a study of the effects and implications of the policy of selectivity, over the period from 1989 to the present time. The study involved analysis of quantitative information on the higher education sector and qualitative information provided through visits to a sample of institutions. The report of the study addresses the following issues: What have been the effects of selectivity on institutions, including at the institutional and departmental levels? Has the present level of selectively resulted in the best use of public funds?
`A Review of the Technology Foresight Programme (TFP) Priorities and HEFCE Research Quanta' by Professor Derek Burke, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia
Professor Burke was commissioned by HEFCE to undertake a study of how the generic science and technology priorities identified in the Technology Foresight Steering Group (TFSG) report could be mapped onto the HEFCE research quanta, how the research quanta might be adjusted in response to such a mapping (if appropriate), and the implications of making such adjustments.
Annex C
Mapping of 1996 Units of Assessment to Cost Weight Bands
| Units of Assessment | Cost Weight Bands |
|---|---|
| 1 Clinical Laboratory Sciences | Clinical Medicine |
| 2 Community Based Clinical Subjects | Clinical Medicine |
| 3 Hospital Based Clinical Subjects | Clinical Medicine |
| 4 Clinical Dentistry | Laboratory |
| 5 Pre-Clinical Studies | Laboratory |
| 6 Anatomy | Laboratory |
| 7 Physiology | Laboratory |
| 8 Pharmacology | Laboratory |
| 9 Pharmacy | Laboratory |
| 10 Nursing | Part-Laboratory |
| 11 Other Studies and Professions Allied to Medicine | Laboratory |
| 12 Biochemistry | Laboratory |
| 13 Psychology | Part-Laboratory |
| 14 Biological Sciences | Laboratory |
| 15 Agriculture | Laboratory |
| 16 Food Science and Technology | Laboratory |
| 17 Veterinary Science | Laboratory |
| 18 Chemistry | Laboratory |
| 19 Physics | Laboratory |
| 20 Earth Sciences | Laboratory |
| 21 Environmental Studies | Laboratory |
| 22 Pure Mathematics | Part-Laboratory |
| 23 Applied Mathematics | Part-Laboratory |
| 24 Statistics and Operational Research | Part-Laboratory |
| 25 Computer Science | Part-Laboratory |
| 26 General Engineering | Laboratory |
| 27 Chemical Engineering | Laboratory |
| 28 Civil Engineering | Laboratory |
| 29 Electrical and Electronic Engineering | Laboratory |
| 30 Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering | Laboratory |
| 31 Mineral and Mining Engineering | Laboratory |
| 32 Metallurgy and Materials | Laboratory |
| 33 Built Environment | Part-Laboratory |
| 34 Town and Country Planning | Part-Laboratory |
| 35 Geography | Part-Laboratory |
| 36 Law | Library |
| 37 Anthropology | Library |
| 38 Economic and Econometrics | Library |
| 39 Politics and International Studies | Library |
| 40 Social Policy and Administration | Library |
| 41 Social Work | Library |
| 42 Sociology | Library |
| 43 Business and Management Studies | Part-Laboratory |
| 44 Accountancy | Library |
| 45 American Studies | Library |
| 46 Middle Eastern and African Studies | Library |
| 47 Asian Studies | Library |
| 48 European Studies | Library |
| 49 Celtic Studies | Library |
| 50 English Language and Literature | Library |
| 51 French | Library |
| 52 German, Dutch and Scandinavian Languages | Library |
| 53 Italian | Library |
| 54 Russian, Slavonic and East European Languages | Library |
| 55 Iberian and Latin American Languages | Library |
| 56 Linguistics | Library |
| 57 Classics, Ancient History, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies | Library |
| 58 Archaeology | Library |
| 59 History | Library |
| 60 History of Art, Architecture and Design | Library |
| 61 Library and Information Management | Library |
| 62 Philosophy | Library |
| 63 Theology, Divinity and Religious Studies | Library |
| 64 Art and Design | Part-Laboratory |
| 65 Communication, Cultural and Media Studies | Part-Laboratory |
| 66 Drama, Dance and Performing Arts | Part-Laboratory |
| 67 Music | Part-Laboratory |
| 68 Education | Part-Laboratory |
| 69 Sports Related Subjects | Part-Laboratory |