The University of Leicester has been criticised by the UK’s advertising watchdog for a “misleading” tweet in which it claimed that its “arts and humanities research is number 1 in the UK”.
The Advertising and Standards Authority (ASA) ruling follows a tweet by the university on the day after the results of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework were published on 12 May, which saw Leicester rank highly in several Panel D subject tables compiled by Times Higher Education based on institutional performance.
Based on a grade point average (GPA) of researchers submitted to the REF, Leicester finished second nationally for history (behind only the University of Kent), third and joint seventh for communication, cultural and media studies, library and information management, and 11th for English language and literature, although it did not enter outputs for several Panel D subjects, including modern languages and linguistics and Classics.
