Warwick is justifiably proud of the reputation it has earned for the quality of its research and has ambitious goals for continuing growth. Although Warwick is already clearly one of the UK’s leading research-led universities, the strategy has the goal of enhancing its research profile to yet higher levels of international excellence. It aims, no less, at us becoming a top fifty world-ranked university.

The research component of the University strategy is informed by a range of both quantitative and qualitative indicators that will allow us to follow progress to our goals. International excellence, in both individual and team research, will remain our primary indicator, but we will also be thinking and acting more strategically in the development of our research programmes in the future and the strategy contains suggestions as to how we can do this.

Specific objectives have been set to ensure Warwick becomes an undisputed world leader in research and scholarship:

• Continue to search for, appoint, nurture and reward the most able academic, research and support staff, continuing to aspire toward achieving 45 highly cited academics and providing the support possible to achieving this goal.
• Continue to grow postgraduate research numbers to double PGR students to 2200 by 2015 and explore innovative funding mechanism to support Masters and PhDs and to provide an excellent post graduate experience, developing new innovative interdisciplinary approaches for both Masters’ and postgraduate research skills training.
• Presenting our major areas of research strength around key global priorities and challenge s currently confronting the world with particular emphasis on research that can make a globally distinctive contribution. These include: Food Security; Energy; Global Governance; Manufacturing; and Healthcare.
• Strengthen and repositioning the University in the light of its refreshed Strategy focussing on the positive impacts of Warwick research on society at large, particularly in areas of knowledge transfer, the policy making community, and highlighting the economic, social and cultural benefits of Warwick’s research.
• Continue to develop collaborative research and teaching opportunities internationally, working with leading universities in Europe and around the world.

The strategy continues to build on some of the exciting projects already underway at Warwick, such as Science City (supported by Advantage West Midlands), the Digital Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study and the Warwick Commissions. Our research will be driven by absolute excellence in our core disciplines, but we are fully aware that there is a changing environment in which multi- and interdisciplinary research is becoming increasingly important both nationally and globally. Warwick has strongly embraced multi- and interdisciplinarity as exemplified by the Doctoral Training Centres (for example Molecular Organisation and Assembly in Cells (MOAC), Complexity, Systems Biology), Warwick Systems Biology and new initiatives in Global History, Security Studies and Energy Sustainability and Life Sciences.

We want new colleagues and researchers of the very highest international calibre, state-of-the-art buildings and equipment and a PhD population that doubles by 2015. We are increasing the proportion of our research budgets from traditional sources such as the UK and European Research Councils, but are also looking to new partnerships such as those with industry, foundations and other private and public sector agencies. Such inputs are not, of course, simply ends in themselves. They are the means to an end of producing world class research. They are what will enable the achievement of our ambition: namely the ability to undertake exciting, ground-breaking, internationally excellent, and in many instances, policy-relevant research.