Knowledge excellence

We're proud to rank in the top 10% for skills and enterprise and top 20% for local growth and regeneration among English Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the 2021 Knowledge Excellence Framework (KEF).

We also ranked in the top 30% of HEIs for our research partnerships, and in the top 40% (self-assessed) for public and community engagement. We plan to build on our success in this area by implementing a new university-wide public engagement strategy later in the year.

We'll be expanding our provision with ARU Peterborough, which opens in September 2022. This new university aims to improve and retain the skills of people in the region, and bring additional opportunity and prosperity to the area.

The KEF is held by Research England. It assesses the interaction of England’s HEIs with business and the public, through seven key indicators: public and community engagement; research partnerships; working with business; working with the public and third sector; skills, enterprise and entrepreneurship; local growth and regeneration; IP and commercialisation. Institutions are measured against peers with similar characteristics to ensure a fair comparison.

The KEF sits alongside the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) as England’s third pillar of university assessment. 2021 is its inaugural year.