for Leadership Studies, now part of the University of Exeter Business School, was established in 1997 as an institute for research and advanced study into leadership theory.
Exeter had a total research income of £70.2 million in 2016/17. In addition to the traditional MPhil and PhD route, professional doctorates and split-site PhDs for International students are also offered.
Research at Exeter focuses on a number of interdisciplinary themes. Research strengths and key themes include:
Climate change and sustainable futures
Extrasolar planets
Functional materials
Genomics
Ecology
Conservation Biology
Medical history
Middle Eastern and Islamic studies
Migration and identity
Systems Biology
Translational medicine, personalised healthcare and public health
Research into extrasolar planets – planets located outside the Solar System – is strong at Exeter. A team of international scientists led by the university are exploring the atmospheric conditions of exoplanets using the Hubble Space Telescope. Other international astronomical facilities available to facilitate the detection of exoplanets include the VLT Survey Telescope, the Gemini Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The university has developed links with the Met Office, also based in Exeter, to build sophisticated climate prediction models.
In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, Exeter is ranked joint 23rd by GPA (along with the University of Leeds) and 18th for research power (the grade point average score of a university, multiplied by the full-time equivalent number of researchers submitted). Exeter was ranked 30th in the UK for the quality (GPA) of its research and 21st for its Research Power in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. In the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise, nearly 90% of Exeter's research was rated as being at internationally recognised levels; 17% of the submitted research was rated 4*("world-leading"). 16 of the 31 subjects evaluated were …
