General Engineering research at Southampton ranked as 4th in the UK - ORC makes significant contribution

The Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) was returned in the 2021 REF as part of the General Engineering Unit of Assessment, which has been ranked as 4th in the UK for GPA and Power .

The REF assesses the quality and impact of research submitted by UK universities and results are used by UK higher education funding bodies to allocate almost £2 billion of research funding per year from 2022.

97% of the University of Southampton's General Engineering return was rated as world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*), confirming that photonics research at Southampton remains at the cutting-edge of knowledge creation on the international stage.

The ORC contributions included impact case studies on high-power fibre lasers, hollow-core fibres, silicon photonics and advanced nonlinear materials.

Imperial College, the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge took the top three spots just ahead of the University of Southampton.

Professor Sir David Payne said, "It's very pleasing to see that research from the ORC is once again being recognised as internationally excellent as it was in the previous assessment. Our researchers are making important contributions to creating a new, technology-driven economy by harnessing the properties of Light. Our world-class facilities and sustained EPSRC funding have both been significant factors in achieving these excellent results."

Research England will publish full results in the summer of 2022.