For Sally Feldman, Dean of the School of Media Arts and Design at the University of Westminster, the Research Assessment Exercise for 2008 will mark the point at which media studies lost its status as a “Mickey Mouse” subject. Hers is one of only five university departments in Britain where at least 60 per cent of the research submitted to a panel of experts was rated as “world-leading”.

“There has always been a massive amount of snobbery towards media studies. It is partly because the old universities do not like the new ones encroaching on their territory and partly because the media don't like being scrutinised,” she said. “Last year Cambridge University said it would not accept media studies A level without at least two other traditional subjects. I think they are just fuddy duddies.

“Media studies is far more demanding than some traditional subjects. In addition to lectures, seminars and essays, students have to work in teams to make films and other productions,” Ms Feldman said.

Her department's research covers a wide range of issues from how children use the internet, the politics and economics of media ownership, audience reactions to reality television and the role of the media in the emerging global economic giants. The department has a China Media Centre and an Arab Media Centre and is developing similar centres for India and Africa.

Ms Feldman, a former journalist and for many years editor of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, said: “The media form one of the most influential vehicles we have for communication and understanding in the world.” Her department's research covers issues including how children use the internet and the role of the media in the emerging global economic giants. It has a China Media Centre and an Arab Media Centre and is developing similar operations in India and Africa.

“We were the first institution to award a media studies degree in the 70s and we launched a research centre at the same time,” she said.

Another unlikely hero of the Research Assessment Exercise is Leicester University's museum studies department, the only one in the country devoted to the subject.

Richard Sandell, the department's director, said that its research, often conducted in collaboration with colleagues from around the world, had helped to project museums from their image as dusty institutions concerned with the business of collecting, preserving, researching and documenting objects for the benefit of a privileged minority, to vibrant players in the local community.

“We have helped move things on through looking at practice in museums. Museums are now places of life- long learning, they are helping people understand each other's differences and helping communities live alongside each other, and they are promoting cultural cohesion,” he said.

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