of which £33.9 million was from Research Councils; £25.9 million was from central government, local authorities and public corporations; £12.7 million was from the European Union; £7.9 million was from UK industry and commerce; £5.2 million was from UK charitable bodies; £4.0 million was from overseas sources; and £0.5 million was from other sources. In the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), Warwick was again ranked 7th overall amongst multi-faculty institutions and was the top-ranked university in the Midlands. 87% of the university's academic staff were rated as being in "world-leading" or "internationally excellent" departments with top research ratings of 4* or 3*.
Warwick is particularly strong in the areas of decision sciences research including economics, finance, management, mathematics and statistics. For instance, researchers of Warwick Business School have won the highest prize of the prestigious European Case Clearing House. Warwick has also established a number of stand-alone units to manage and extract commercial value from its research activities. The four most prominent examples of these units are University of Warwick Science Park; Warwick HRI; Warwick Ventures; and WMG.
=== Commercial focus ===
Warwick has at times received criticism for being too commercially focused, at the expense of academic creativity and diversity. The most famous proponent of this critique was the noted historian E. P. Thompson, who edited and wrote much of Warwick University Ltd in 1971. The book focuses on the brief student occupation of the Registry in 1967, and its causes, the files that were discovered and published, and the subsequent actions of the university, students and staff.
Nevertheless, with the appointment of Sir Nicholas Scheele as Chancellor in 2002, the university signalled that it intended to continue and expand its commercial activities. In an interview for the BBC, Scheele said: "I think in the future, education and industry need to become even more closely linked than they have been historically. …
