University Times

Pitt moved up to No. 59, tied with France’s Ecole Normale Supérieure, among the 2011-12 top 400 universities worldwide, according to a report issued Oct. 6 by Times Higher Education (THE), a London-based independent magazine that reports specifically on higher education issues.

Last year, the first time THE global rankings were issued in this format, Pitt ranked 64th overall.

THE annual world university rankings issued before last year were compiled in collaboration with Quacquarelli Symonds, which provides educational/career information and networking.

But beginning in 2010, rankings were developed in concert with Thomson Reuters, with input from more than 50 leading figures in the sector worldwide. In addition, for this year’s rankings, more than 17,500 academicians from 137 countries were surveyed in 2011, the world’s largest reputation survey, according to THE.

The magazine further states, “Our rankings of the top universities across the globe employ 13 separate performance indicators designed to capture the full range of university activities, from teaching to research to knowledge transfer. These 13 elements are brought together into five headline categories, which are:

• Teaching — the learning environment (worth 30 percent of the overall ranking score);

• Research — volume, income and reputation (30 percent);

• Citations — research influence (30 percent);

• Industry income — innovation (2.5 percent), and

• International outlook — staff, students and research (worth 7.5 percent).

The last category — international outlook — was refined in this year’s methodology. Last year the category was defined as the proportion of international staff and students at institutions; this year, the category examines the proportion of research papers each institution publishes with at least one international co-author.

In addition, the magazine dropped an indicator from last year — public research income/total research income — which the magazine states “suffered from the lack of readily comparable data between countries.”

THE posts relative rankings for the top 200, with the balance of institutions unranked in clusters of 25 universities, for example, Nos. 201-225.

U.S. institutions held down 11 of the top 15 spots overall, according to THE, including the top three worldwide — California Institute of Technology, followed by Harvard and Stanford, which were tied at No. 2.

In addition to Pitt, other Pennsylvania institutions that made the top 200 list were Penn at No. 16 (No. 19 last year); Carnegie Mellon at No. 21 (No. 20 last year), and Penn State at No. 51 (No. 109 last year).

Among the 75 U.S. institutions that appear on the top 200 list of institutions worldwide, Pitt ranked No. 35, up from No. 38 in 2010-11.

The full report is accessible at www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/top-400.html.

—Peter Hart