The University of Sussex Business School has retained its ranking of third in the UK for research income, according to a new report published by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS).

The latest CABS Research Income report shows the business school received more than £11 million in research income over the last three years (£11,132,000 for the combined period of 2016/17 to 2018/19).

The figure placed the business school behind only the University of Warwick and University of Manchester nationwide, outperforming larger competitors including the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, the University of Oxford, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Sussex remains top of the research income tables for non-affiliated business schools for the fifth consecutive year.

Nationally, research income in Business & Management is 15% higher than in 2013/14 and 11% higher than in 2008/09 in nominal terms, but income from all sources is 18% lower than in 2008/09 when adjusting for inflation.

The report states that research funding for Business & Management as a proportion of funding for all universities has fallen from 1.3% to 1.1% between 2013/14 and 2018/19 - a proportional decline of 15%.

Total research income for Business & Management attained a record high of £73.5m in 2018/19 and has now increased for three consecutive years.

The increase in funding compared to 2017/18 is largely driven by EU government bodies (+12%) and the UK research councils (+8%), with these sources offsetting falls in income from UK-based charities under a competitive process (-36%) and non-EU other sources (-22%).

Professor Steven McGuire, Dean of the University of Sussex Business School, said: “Our excellent research grant performance is not a one-off, but has been sustained over several years. This reflects the quality of our academic staff who develop the research projects, as well as Professional Services colleagues, who prepare, cost and administer the grants.

"Research does not stand apart from teaching; our students benefit from being taught by leading researchers and by being in a business school where rigorous and novel inquiry is part of our everyday experience.”

The report based its findings on data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) finance records 2008/09 to 2018/19 and the Heidi Plus Online Analytics service data for 2013/14 to 2018/19.