Top of the Class

Here's the REF analysis you won't have seen yet. The results are in, and it seems that Wales has the cleverest academics, followed by Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.

Using average GPA across all submissions from universities and institutions in the four countries, the results are:

Wales - 3.035
Scotland - 3.028
England - 3.022
Northern Ireland - 2.954

Marginal, for sure, but clear at three decimal places.

Cymru am byth!


[Edit, 22 December: just to clarify, this is a bit tongue-in-cheek. The REF doesn't really prove this; at best it proves that the tactics of universities in Wales were marginally better than those in the other four UK nations. And it probably doesn't really prove this either, it simply demonstrates that with large numbers of universities there's a regression to the mean. I'll be posting more on REF, with more data and analysis, in the New Year. Once it ceases to be fashionable.]