I represent the department of anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, and I write to correct the published scores for my department in your subject rankings of research intensity (“The race is not to the swift”, Features, 1 January). The error arises from the inclusion of postdoctoral research and teaching fellows in the total number of staff eligible for submission in the numbers published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. In fact, the total number of eligible staff in our department was 12, and not 20 as stated in the table, out of whom 11 were selected for submission. This makes a massive difference to our intensity-weighted grade point average, raising it from 1.52 to 2.53, and lifting our position from 23rd to 13th in the combined ranking for anthropology and development studies.
Tim Ingold
Chair in social anthropology
University of Aberdeen