News and Events >
Research Assessment Exercise 2006 Results Celebrated
Outstanding Results Achieved
The performance of the History Department in the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE2006) was the best ever for the Department and one of the best for the entire University.
The Department received a 100% rating for both Research Index (RI) and the percentage of staff who scored "1" (i.e. fully active researchers).
Vast Improvement on Earlier Results Achieved
By comparison, results in the 1996 RAE were 41% and 7% and in the 1999 RAE were 60% and 40% respectively. The Department has thus made an enormous improvement.
History Department Ranked Top in Hong Kong for Research
The Hong Kong sector-wide RI for History in the 2006 exercise was 83.33% and HKU's History Department out-performed all other history departments in Hong Kong. Despite the generally high performance at HKU, only two other departments in the University managed so distinguished a performance as History, so members of the Department are very pleased with this result.
Celebrations, Congratulations and the Ratings Explained
On Friday 9 March, Department members, Honorary staff and friends of the Department met to celebrate the good news. Dr. Peter Cunich, the Department Chairman, addressed the gathering, congratulating all six colleagues whose research output was assessed in the RAE 2006.
Dr. Cunich explained that "the RAE result is a composite score which indicates that ALL who submitted outputs are performing at a high level of international scholarship appropriate to Hong Kong's higher education sector. This adds great lustre to our excellent performance in other areas of activity over the last few years and is something which I am sure will help us in securing the future of the Department as the University moves towards its centenary and a new 4-year curriculum."
The foundations laid by Dr Tom Stanley and Professor Chan Lau Kit-ching during their respective tenures of the headship of the Department were duly acknowledged by Dr. Cunich, who noted, "without their work in setting the research agenda for the Department during a time of massive staff cuts this year's result would not have been possible. I would also like to thank all past colleagues (many of whom are now honorary professors) for their input to the Department's research culture over the years. This extraordinarily good performance owes much to their contributions over the years."
 |
