The universities of Oxford and Cambridge could lose around £8.5m a year each in research funding, according to figures reported by the media today.

UK universities are waiting to see how much funding from the government’s £1.5bn pot for research the institutions will win or lose after last year’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) – Britain’s major audit of university research quality. The official allocations based on the result of the RAE, are due in March.

But a report in the Times quotes figures draw up by Research Fortnight, a newspape specialising in academic research policy, speculating that the UK’s leading universities could be hit hard. It estimates that less research intensive universities, such as Wolverhampton, could see their funding go up from £138,000 a year to £2.4m.

After the publication of the RAE results in December 2008, Nature reported concerns that the research coffers could be spread too thin, with the top universities losing out.