Our impact in numbers

The University of Southampton is recognised as a world-leading and internationally excellent research university. Explore the statistics which highlight our strengths.

Research Excellence Framework results

We reaffirmed our position as one of the leading research universities, following publication of the latest national assessment of research, Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014.

Read our REF 2014 results press release .

REF is a system run by the four UK higher education funding bodies that assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.

interdisciplinary groups Our strengths and impact in numbers

• 237+ research groups

• 84+ world-class research facilities

• nine interdisciplinary groups tackling big societal issues

• top three universities world-wide for the quality of our spin-outs

• 12 successful spin-out companies created since 2000, three of which have been floated on the stock market

• more than 150 different businesses have currently chosen us for their research and development

• currently work with more than 300 companies worldwide

• contribute an estimated £195m to the local economy

• 91 per cent of our graduates are in work or further study after their course

• research funding in excess of £100m - increase of eight per cent over previous years

• optical fibre research has led the world for 50 years

• three Southampton professors awarded Wolfson merit awards in 2014