While many may assume that the UK's leading hotspot for life sciences would be Oxford or Cambridge, Dundee in fact hosts the most exciting life sciences cluster in the UK, with world-class companies, universities and research institutes all within a three-mile radius. When judged by ‘citations-per-paper', one of the most widely recognised metrics of scientific excellence, the 2020 QS World University Rankings in Biological Sciences placed University of Dundee at number one in the UK and Europe, and 16th in the world.

The influential CWTS Leiden Ranking for biomedical and health sciences impact in 2021 placed the city fifth in the UK and Europe, while in the most recent UK-wide assessment of research quality in UK higher education institutions – REF2014 – Dundee was ranked the top university in biological sciences.