HESA via HEIDI

Income and expenditure by sector from 1993/4 and by institution from 2006/7. Includes general income and expenditure figures with breakdowns by source and category of spend. The tables can be used to examine income from funding council grants, tuition fees & education grants, research grants & contracts and endowment & investment income.

Scottish Funding Council

Provides statistical bulletins on the size, composition, income and expenditure of HEIs that it funds. Available in PDF format to 2007/8.

SCONUL

Annual Library Statistics supply details of expenditure on library staff, information provision (eg hard copy and digital material, conservation), buildings, utilities, equipment and operational costs; and on library income (fines, copying, sale of publications etc.).

Higher Education Financial Yearbook 2010/2011

The Higher Education Financial Yearbook provides the 'latest financial results, the facts and the people behind the UK's universities and higher education institutions: taken from official audited accounts' including:

1. HE sector: analysis of HEIs financial performance using income and expenditure accounts and balance sheets; monitoring of past performance for up to five years; assessment of the overall financial performance of each university using detailed two year cashflow tables.

2. University Financial Performance Analysis Tables ranking universities by key criteria such as income, academic expenditure and net assets: allows identification of market position using tables that rank universities by key criteria, including: total income, academic expenditure and net assets; comparison of universities' financial results and assessment of universities by a number of criteria, including: total expenditure, operating costs and cashflow.

British Universities Finance Directors Group publishes member institutions' financial statements.

ADLS

Administrative Data Liaison Service (ADLS) provides details of content and guidance on use of HESA finance datasets.

HEFCE

Collects TRAC (Transparent Approach to Costing) data, where HEIs allocate their costs against different activities to track profit and loss against these activities. This is sensitive material and only accessible to members of a limited peer group, for benchmarking purposes. It does not go to HESA.

HESA via HEIDI

Student record: all students (and subsets) by level, mode, domicile, gender, location of institution (from 2004/5).

Student data tables: by institution, subject of study, ethnicity, qualifications, disability, ethnicity (from 1996/7).

Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE): all leavers (and subsets) destinations by qualification, gender, domicile, subject area, occupation or industry classification, salary (from 2006/7).

Destination of Leavers Longitudinal Study (2009) of leavers 2004/5.

Employment Performance Indicators by institution: percentage of graduates from each institution who entered employment or further study. Expresses the number of graduates who say they are working or studying (or both) as a percentage of all those who are working or studying or seeking work.

HESA via Unistats (for HE at Higher Education Institutions (all countries) and indirectly funded HE students at Further Education Colleges (England only)).

Student data: entry qualifications and UCAS tariff score, progression and achievement.

Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE): destinations, job categories and job types.

Context statistics: number of registered students, domicile, age, level of study, gender, study mode.

Teaching Quality Information (TQI): TQI data have been published on Unistats since 2007.

ADLS

Provides details of content and guidance on use of HESA student datasets (student record and data tables and DHLE).

UCAS

Full time applicants: Statistical Enquiry Tool provides UK data for applicants at UCAS institutions. Data available as Annual Datasets. Allows customisation of available data for specific requirements via downloadable datasets allowing creation of customised PivotTables. Available for only one year at a time (from 1996).

Applications and accepted applicants: Annual Datasets provide data on applications and accepted applicants by qualification (Degree, Foundation degree, HND) over a five year period, available by institution, subject, age, region/domicile, qualifications, ethnicity/social class and international.

Applications, applicants and accepted applicants over a five/six year period: A range of static Data Tables provide data on and broken down by various categories including gender, ethnic group, HE subject, HE institution, region of residence, education background etc.

Applications Digests comprise five/six years of data and show the number of applications received by each university and college at the same snapshot date each year. Each table shows a comparison with the position at the same time last year.

FAQs supply further information.

Skills Funding Agency (SFA) (formerly Learning and Skills Council) via Unistats: (for directly funded HE students in FE Colleges in England)

Student data: entry qualifications, continuation and achievement.

Context Statistics: number of registered students, domicile, age, level of study, gender, study mode.

HEFCE/HESA Performance Indicators

HESA publishes Performance Indicators on behalf of HEFCE for all publicly funded HEIs in the UK. Those relating to students cover:

• Widening participation indicators

• Non-continuation rates (including projected outcomes)

• Module completion rates

• Employment of graduates

Scottish Funding Council

For FE The Infact Database contains data on students and courses in further education colleges in Scotland for 1998-99 to 2008-09.

Department for Employment and Learning (DELNI)

Statistics generated in Northern Ireland include HE Enrolments and Qualifications and FE Enrolments and Qualifications.

British Council

International Student Decision Making survey data and automated reports: Launched in 2007 in over 30 countries (with 32,000 respondents that year and a further 40,000 in 2008) this global survey targets potential students in their home country interested in studying abroad or pursuing a foreign qualification in their home country. Information includes: why students want to study overseas, what they are looking for in an institution, location and course, and where they look for information. Available to Education UK Partnership members only and accessible via an online data mining tool and an automated reports tool.

HE International Student Early Reporting: launched in 2008 this system enables all UK HE institutions to share their international student numbers, to eliminate the waiting time currently experienced for access to such data (eg from HESA). Institutions can submit their data to a secure website and then access all participating institutions' data using an on-line data mining tool. Access to the data (using a data mining tool) is only available to institutions that have submitted their own data.

HESA Data Mining product: allows Education UK Partnership members to make customised queries of higher education student data for the period 2002-03 to 2008-09, producing sets of data tailored to their own needs. The data held in the query system is supplied by HESA.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

OECD maintains broad statistics for education at all levels in a national context. Publications include OECD Education Statistics while the OECD database library offers downloadable data in pdf format (eg tertiary education entry and graduation rates; relative earnings for age group 25-64 (male and female)).

HEFCE via Unistats

National Students Survey (NSS): an annual survey, started in 2005, of undergraduates' experience of the final year of their course in HE institutions and some FE colleges. It covers teaching; assessment and feedback; academic support; organisation and management; learning resources; personal development and overall satisfaction. It is completed by about 50% of all undergraduates in English, Welsh and Northern Irish and some Scottish institutions.

The results are available on Unistats website and allow potential students to compare subjects, universities and UCAS points, see satisfaction ratings from other students and see what the employment prospects are for graduate jobs by subject chosen. Participating institutions and students' unions can also make use of the data to improve the student learning. Ipsos MORI administers the NSS on behalf of HEFCE.

The NSS Results Site is available to participating institutions, giving more detailed results for internal use only and are not for publication. IPSOS-mori feeds data back to institutions and students' unions (password protected). NSS Data is also held by HESA.

Higher Education Academy

National Students Survey. The Higher Education Academy undertake substantial research into the NSS. Some outputs of NSS can be found on The Academy website. 'Exploratory evaluation of the use of the National Student Survey Results Dissemination Website', 2007, found that institutions were using the site for information, quality assurance and quality enhancement.

National Students Survey 'The National Student Survey three years on: what have we learned?' Paula Surridge. 2008. Provides the key findings of three years of research using the NSS. Provides a non-technical summary, a guide to interpreting the research, discussion of strengths and limitations of the NSS as a vehicle for understanding the student experience.

National Students Survey Case studies: NSS encourages institutions and student unions to complete a case study template. Universities have provided nine case studies that show how they have used NSS data on their institution to eg improve turnaround time for feedback; argue for increase in library opening hours; align with internal surveys; improve tutoring system.

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES). First run by HEA in 2007. Questions relate to experience of the whole research degree programme including supervision, infrastructure, professional development and career; an overall evaluation of the experience; experience of any teaching opportunities; personal factors; and whether expectations of the research programme were met.

Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES). First run by HEA in 2009. Questions cover motivations to undertake a postgraduate taught programme; quality of teaching and learning, assessment and feedback, dissertation, organisation and management, learning resources, skills and personal development, career and professional development.

Both Surveys allow institutions to collect feedback from current postgraduate students in a systematic and user-friendly way. Results are anonymous, allowing comparison against sector benchmarks and previous years' survey results, whilst ensuring that they are used for internal enhancement rather than as league tables.

National Union of Students (NUS) Officer Online National Student Survey. Some examples of how Student Unions have used NSS results. These brief case studies offer some examples of how individual student unions have responded to, and used their NSS results. They illustrate how the NSS can be a powerful catalyst for change and how these results can make a positive difference.

International Graduate Insight Group

International Student Barometer and Student Barometer. Provide independent and confidential feedback processes for providers, tracking the decision-making, perceptions, expectations and experiences of international and domestic students. This is a comparative measure, tracking year on year how expectations and perceptions change - within the institution and against national and global benchmarks.

Bouncebacks are snapshot surveys that allow the targeting of a specific group of students about a specific set of issues, as a follow up to the Barometer process (see above). It enables institutions to follow up on results concerning the decision-making, perceptions, expectations and experiences of students. It is intended as a dialogue: the institution has taken on board what students have said and gone back for further clarification.

The Alumni Barometer provides core information for building alumni relations programmes. It offers a tracking mechanism for institutions committed to understanding the outcomes, career progression and reflections of their alumni, both international and domestic.

The English Language Barometer offers a feedback process for providers, tracking the decision-making, perception, expectations and experiences of English language students worldwide. Designed to help English language providers improve the student experience and the consistency and quality of provision across the sector.

The Distance Education Barometer launched in 2010, offers a comparative feedback process for providers, giving institutions insights into the expectations and perceptions of their distance learners whether traditional, online only or supported.

HESA via HEIDI

Staff data. Summary of all staff by mode of employment and gender. Summary of academic staff by gender, source of salary, academic employment function, professorial status and terms of employment. Data on non-academic staff is covered in recent editions with breakdowns by standard occupational classification and gender (sector from 2002/3, institutions from 2007/8).

SCONUL

Annual Library Statistics: staff data relates to professional library staff, other (para-professional) library staff, and ancillary staff associated with the library. User data includes FTE academic staff (sourced from HESA) and FTE other university staff (i.e. non-academic staff).

International Graduate Insight Group: Higher Education Career Barometer: Understanding Career Motivation in Higher Education. This study helps institutions to attract, motivate and retain talented staff; understand why staff join, stay and leave an institution; compare the staff experience to that at other institutions; and develop and maintain staff development and career progression.

ADLS

Provides details of content and guidance on use of HESA staff dataset.

HEFCE/HESA Performance Indicators

Research output: HESA publishes Performance Indicators on behalf of HEFCE for all publicly funded HEIs in the UK.

HEFCE RAE/REF

The Research Assessment Exercise is a peer review exercise by the four UK funding councils to evaluate the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. This assessment informs the selective distribution of funds by the UK higher education funding bodies. Any HEI in the UK that is eligible to receive research funding from one of these bodies is eligible to participate. Results from the most recent, RAE 2008, are now available on the RAE 2008 website. The primary purpose was to produce quality profiles for each submission of research activity made by institutions. The resulting quality profiles can be viewed in two formats, either by subject unit of assessment (UOA) or by institution. Alongside each submission's quality profile is the FTE number of Category A staff included in that submission. Full results of all institutions can be downloaded on an Excel spreadsheet. Information on previous RAEs, held in 2001, 1996, and 1992, is available on the RAE website.

Research Councils

While HESA provides aggregated data on levels of research funding awarded to institutions based on that provided by individual research councils and HEFCE, individual Research Councils hold data about their own research performance.

Each research council generates its own data in self-selected categories. Some include such data on their web pages (eg AHRC) and all publish research award data as part of their annual report and accounts.

Data varies from council to council but might include facts and figures about:

• applications

• awards

• gross research grant expenditure by programme and institution

• research applications and awards by territorysubject area, institution

• awards by region

• top 25 universities

• numbers of researchers numbers and PhD students

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Awards by scheme, subject, institution, award holder and project and some case studies of funded research.

Research statistics: facts and figures about applications to, and awards by the AHRC Research statistics: split into three broad types of funding: research and postgraduate (from 2005); and knowledge transfer from 2007. Also block grant award details and annual submission rate survey.

Annual report and accounts (PDF) also provide details of awards.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)

Spending overview includes sections on overall spending; spending by region; to its institutes; top 25 universities and others.

Annual report and accounts includes data as above and gross research expenditure, summary of applications and success rates (by gender) and others.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC):

• Annual report and accounts facts and figures section includes EPSRC expenditure by category (%)

• Research grant investment by programme

• Gross research grant expenditure by programme; total number of researchers and organisations with current funding; public engagement with research - proposals considered and funded; number and value of First Grant Scheme research grants announced

• Fellowships current by scheme and discipline

• PhD students by scheme and discipline; first destination of EPSRC PhD students; trends in publications; funding rates (%) by gender;

• ethnic origin of research grant PIs (%)

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

• Annual reports supply details of major investments in research by category (eg health and wellbeing)

• research applications and awards by territory, subject area, institution, research area (eg government, political science and law)

• performance indicators

• research resources; datasets usage

• knowledge transfer partnerships and others

Medical Research Council (MRC)

Annual report details activities and achievements in research, partnerships, training and career development, knowledge transfer, and public engagement. Contains estimated research expenditure by area (eg infections and immunity); grant funding in response mode and targeted calls (aggregates); awards to individuals and institutions.

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

Annual report (PDF) contains details of responsive standard and small grant applications and success rates; success rates for grants by gender; success rates for fellowships by gender; allocation of science budget by science theme and funding stream; science budget expenditure in research organisations and research centres; grants awarded (by institution).

Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

Annual report and accounts (PDF) include statistics for grants, fellowships and awards by institution and area (eg particle physics); facility development grants; research studentships.

HE Research Yearbook

Commercial publication includes HE Funding Council recurrent research income; research grant and contract income; Research Council grant income; research income from charities; research income from industry; research income from Europe; academic staff; researchers; Research Council studentships; PhD students graduating; Thomson Reuters journal publications; impact of research publications.

HESA

In 2004 HESA took over the publication of Performance Indicators (PI) from HEFCE, who had published them from 1999-2003. HESA publishes Performance Indicators on behalf of HEFCE and the other funding bodies for all publicly funded HEIs in the UK. All relate to student indicators except for one, on Research output.

HEFCE/HESA Widening Participation PI look at the percentage of students from state schools or colleges, specified socio-economic classes and low-participation neighbourhoods.

HEFCE/HESA Disabled Students PI provides information about the percentage of disabled students in the sector and those receiving Disabled Students Allowance. It covers all UK domiciled undergraduate students, rather than just entrants.

HEFCE/HESA Non-continuation rates PI looks at non-continuation rates for students considering 1) students who start in a particular year, and looks at whether they are still in higher education one or two years later. 2) projected outcomes over a longer period.

HEFCE/HESA Employment of graduates PI: derived from DLHE but shows only expresses the number of graduates who say they are working or studying (or both) as a percentage of all those who are working or studying or seeking work.

HEFCE/HESA Module completion PI looks at rates of completion by full and part-time students.

HEFCE/HESA Research outputs PI looks at four indicators of annual research output:

1. proportion of PhDs awarded per proportion of academic staff costs

2. proportion of PhDs awarded per proportion of funding council quality-related (QR) funding allocation for research

3. proportion of research grants and contracts obtained per proportion of academic staff costs

4. proportion of research grants and contracts obtained per proportion of funding council QR funding allocation for research

All of the above are available from the main HESA PI site or alternatively details of individual PIs are also available.

SCONUL

The Performance Portal is developing a toolkit of data, measurement techniques and instruments for HEI library performance measurement to help libraries demonstrate their value to senior stakeholders within their institutions. It provides access to tools for measuring customer satisfaction; customer service excellence; EFQM Excellence Model; Impact initiative.

SCONUL Satisfaction Survey provides user questionnaire templates which provide academic libraries with an effective way of measuring customer satisfaction levels. SCONUL also work with LibQUAL+ which provides a survey tool to ascertain what users expect from the library service as well as how they perceive the quality of service received.

Many of the resources contained in other sections - for example Student information and data and Finance and costing can also be used for benchmarking purposes.

HESA

In 2010 HESA was commissioned by HEFCE to investigate benchmarking activity within the UK. The consequent publication Benchmarking to Improve Efficiency: Status Report, November 2010 provides details of sector data sources and services for benchmarking and activity-based (eg teaching) benchmarking, together with case studies and recommendations.

League tables: UK

The Guardian

Enables comparison of 46 subject areas taught at nearly 150 universities and higher education colleges in the UK. Eight criteria are used to assess a university's performance in teaching each subject. Research performance is not measured: the stated aim is to provide help for first-time students, thus concentrating on teaching rather than research ratings. An unusual 'value-added' factor compares students' degree results with their entry qualifications.

Criteria: teaching quality; and feedback (assessment) both as rated by final-year students; NSS results by final-year students rating the overall quality of their course; spending per student; staff-student ratio; job prospects: proportion of graduates who find graduate-level employment, or study full-time, within six months of graduation; value added: comparing students' individual degree results with their entry qualifications; entry qualifications

Sources: HESA Student Record; HESA Staff Record; HESA Destination of Leavers survey; HESA Finance Record; NSS.

The Times

Publishes the Good University Guide (by subscription).The Times university rankings positions universities on their strength in individual subjects and take into account eight criteria:

Criteria: student satisfaction; research; entry standards - average UCAS tariff score; student-staff ratio; library and computing spending - average expenditure per student; facilities spending - average expenditure per student on sports, careers services, health and counselling; good honours - percentage of students graduating with a first or 2.1; graduate prospects; completion.

Sources: NSS, RAE 2008; HESA; DLHE.

Sunday Times

The Sunday Times university league table ranks universities on their strength in individual subjects and take into account nine criteria:

Criteria: student satisfaction; teaching excellence; Heads'/peers assessments of highest-quality undergraduate provision; research quality; A-level/Higher points - nationally audited data for the subsequent academic year are used for league table calculations; unemployment - number of students assume to be unemployed six months after graduation; firsts/2:1s awarded; student/staff ratio;dropout rate.

Sources: NSS; QAA; RAE; SHEFC; HEFCW; HEFCE; HESA; DLHE; Sunday Times heads' survey.

The Complete University Guide published in association with The Independent

Formerly known as The Good University Guide it was first published in 2007. The ranking positions universities on their strength in individual subjects and take into account nine criteria:

Criteria: student satisfaction of the teaching quality at the university: research assessment/quality - measure of the average quality of the research; entry standards - the average UCAS tariff score of new students under 21; student:staff ratio; academic services spend - the expenditure per student on all academic services; facilities spend - the expenditure per student on staff and student facilities; good honours - proportion of firsts and upper seconds; graduate prospects - measure of the employability of a university's graduates; completion - completion rate of all those studying.

Sources: All sources in the public domain including HESA, HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCE, RAE 2008, NSS and from individual universities when not otherwise available.

League tables: international

Times Higher World University Rankings

These are published by Times Higher Education. Used by 'undergraduate and postgraduate students to help select degree courses, by academics to inform career decisions, by research teams to identify new collaborative partners, and by university managers to benchmark their performance and set strategic priorities' and increasingly as a tool for government to set national policy.

13 separate indicators brought together into five categories aim to capture a broad range of activities: Teaching - the learning environment (30% of the final ranking score); Research - volume, income and reputation (30%); Citations - research influence ( 32.5%); Industry income - innovation (2.5%); International mix - staff and students (5%)

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) commonly known as the Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking. This focuses on science and medicine based HEIs and 'considers every university that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medalists, Highly Cited Researchers, or papers published in Nature or Science'. More than 1000 universities are ranked and the top 500 are published on the web.

The CWTS Leiden Rankings (The Centre for Science and Technology) has developed a ranking system based on bibliometric indicators. It covers all universities worldwide with more than 400 Web of Science indexed publications per year. As a result about 500 universities with the largest numbers of publications are included.

The QS World University Rankings ranks the world's top 500 universities and has published annually since 2004. It ranks universities by subject, employer choice, citations, students and faculty. Formerly the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, QS started operating independently in 2010. (see above Times Higher Education World University Rankings)

University Ranking and Ranking of Excellent European Graduate Programmes (the CHE Excellence Ranking) is a ranking for a selected group of European universities, in the fields of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics, political science, psychology, economics and natural sciences. It identifies outstanding academic departments across Europe and presents detailed information about programme offerings and academic qualities to assist prospective graduate students in their search for the most suitable institution to pursue a Master's degree or doctorate.

International Graduate Insight Group

Offers a bespoke benchmarking service, using data collected through the International Student Barometer and Student Barometer initiative (see Student Information above) allowing insights into the populations of specific groups of students; and to benchmark results against a specific sector index.

SCONUL

Library Statistics Trend analysis. An annual benchmarking report for the whole sector over previous 10 years, covering 20-25 indicators including organisation and structure; space & opening hours; information resource provision; library use: information resources; library use: other services; library staff & staff expenditure; information provision expenditure; other expenditure; and library income.

Bespoke benchmarking service. LISU provides tailored benchmarking analysis for individual libraries and other member institutions.

Many of the resources contained in other sections - for example Student information and data and Research data and information can also be used for marketing purposes.

Data described in most of the other subject categories can be used for strategic planning purposes.

Universities UK (UUK)

UUK produces a range of statistical publications providing aggregated data useful for strategic planning: Higher Education in Facts and Figures; staff, finance, students, income and expenditure (annually from 2006). Others published in the Facts and Figures series include: international perspectives (2006, 2010); creative sector (2009); research and innovation (2005, 2006, 2007) health education and research (2008); research and innovation (2007); international perspectives (2006); from elitism to inclusion (2000). Sourced from HESA, HEFCE, HEFCW, SFC, UCAS.

HEFCE Higher Education - Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCI) covers the commercialisation of new knowledge, delivery of professional training, consultancy and services, and activities intended to have direct social benefits. The exchange of knowledge described in this survey takes place between higher education institutions (HEIs) and the wider world of business and the community.

HEFCE/HESA Performance Indicators Widening Participation see Performance Management

HEFCE POLAR and POLAR 2 - Participation Of Local Areas. This initiative provides a series of maps showing the participation of young people in higher education (HE) for geographical areas ranging from regions to wards. They are primarily intended as a web-based resource to aid those involved in widening participation activities.

HEFCW

Publishes statistical information relating to the higher education sector in Wales covering business and community interaction, equality, participation and performance, including the data from STATSWALES.

SCONUL

Annual Library Statistics supply numbers of registered library users who are neither employees nor students of the institution, but are allowed borrowing or reference facilities.

Further information on Business and Community Engagement is available from the JISC infoNet website.

HEFCE Estates Management Statistics (EMS)

Previously contracted out, in 2008/9 it was announced that HESA would take on responsibility for the collection of EMS and data from 2009/10, allowing institutions to streamline their data collection processes and enable data to be collected and used in tandem with other data sets. This covers such areas as sites, buildings, grounds, playing fields, space management, property value, rates , energy, environmental, maintenance and other costs. HEFCE works with The UK Higher Education Space Management Group which has been set up to assist HEIs to implement best practice in the management of space.

SCONUL

Annual Library Statistics include library space from total floor area and a breakdown of its use (eg IT, traditional services, study spaces, user support stations); equipment. Includes trend data from 1993.

UCISA Higher Education Information Technology Statistics (HEITS)

Since 1996/97 regular surveys have been issued to obtain comparative statistics for Information Technology service providers in Higher Education. The most recent, for 2008/9 received 42 institutional returns accounting for 37% of UK FTE students. Statistics include:

• Total IT/IS spend as percentage of total institutional recurrent expenditure

• IT/IS spend per FTE student; IT/IS spend per FTE staff (all staff)

• IT/IS spend per workstation; staff per staff workstation; academic staff per academic staff workstation

• Support staff per support staff workstation

• Students per student workstation; workstation hours per year per 100 students

• IT training hours per student

• IT training hours per member of staff

It also highlights the 'Top Ten Concerns' of respondents across such issues as:

• Funding and sustainable resourcing of IT

• IT strategy and planning

• Organisational change and process improvement

• Business systems to support E-learning

• Development of an enterprise-wide IT Infrastructure

• Mobile computing and so on