BOURNEMOUTH University research is ‘world leading’ and plays an important part in improving society, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) has announced.

The REF assesses the quality and impact of universities’ and colleges’ research and their judgements are used to allocate £2billion of research funding.

BU submitted to eight subject units and had 96 per cent of research rated at an international level, with 18 per cent of that deemed to be world-leading.

This is an increase of 33 per cent in research ranked as world-leading or internationally excellent since 2008.

Professor John Vinney, BU’s Vice-Chancellor, said the increase was due to the fact assessors now looked at the “impact” of their research.

“This is a measurement of how research helps improve society and it is very much at the heart of what we do at BU,” he said.

“We have invested heavily in our research at BU and I am delighted that this has been recognised by our improved assessment with the REF, with 95 per cent of the impact of our research being assessed as internationally recognised.”

The REF assessment found that BU’s tourism department was first in the UK based on internationally recognised research.

Art and design was ranked as first in the south west based on world leading research while communication, cultural and media studies was also rated as first in the south west based on the impact of its research.

One example of BU research submitted to REF was Dr Ian Stephenson’s work into improving motion blur in animated films.

The method which was developed by researchers was implemented by Pixar and is now regularly used in major feature films.