Southampton Joins Elite Research Group

Southampton University has teamed up with the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and University College London to form a new consortium which will become one of the world’s leading hubs for science and engineering research.

The Science and Engineering South Consortium (or SES-5, as it will be known) represent the most powerful cluster of research intensive universities in the world, with a combined annual research spend of more than £1.3 billion and more than 170 Nobel Laureates amongst former and current staff and alumni.

Southampton’s Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Philip Nelson, commented:

We have just started on this collaborative project, although we already have in place collaborative grants that have a value in excess of £150m. We are delighted to formalise links with the UK institutions with whom we already collaborate most in science and engineering research.”

The SES-5 will pool their resources and facilities in order to collude and compete with other globally-renowned institutions. Collective research into the area of High Performance Computing has already commenced, whilst plans are in place for the group to also share research facilities for subjects such as physical sciences, bio-sciences, and engineering.

Research partners from these five universities maintain that the creation of the group will elevate the UK as a platform for international competitiveness in research.