Summary

Key Findings

• The principal effect of the PBRF has been to shift research funding to the universities from institutes of technology/polytechnics

• Between the universities, the effects of the PBRF are more complicated. Discounting for the effects of subject-based weightings, there are five universities whose research quality allocations are clustered in a similar range on a full-time equivalent staff basis. The other two dimensions of the PBRF - research degree completions and external research income - produce greater variations of performance and thus are more important drivers of funding shifts.

• The PBRF subject weightings tend to shift funding towards those universities with substantial research activities in the sciences and the applied sciences - more sharply than the old research top-ups system. In large part, this is a consequence of the fact that in some universities these fields are the focus of considerable research activity but may not attract large numbers of enrolments. Conversely, some lower-funded fields that draw significant enrolments may have lower research performance.