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Three NZ Universities in World Top 200
2 November 2005
Massey University and University of Auckland
Three New Zealand universities have been ranked in the world's top 200.
The University of Auckland improved its position from 67 to 52 in The Times Higher Education Supplement's 2005 World University Rankings.
Otago University ranked 186 and Massey University ranked 188.
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Massey University has again been ranked among the top 200 universities in the world by the Times Higher Education Supplement.
The annual rankings are based on criteria including ratings by other academics and institutions, international employers of graduates, performance of academic staff and scores given by international students.
The core of the Times analysis is peer review, which it says has long been accepted in academic life and across social research as the most reliable means of gauging institutional quality.
The peer-review data account for 40 per cent of the available score in the rankings, 10 percentage points lower than in 2004 because of the addition of data on the opinions of major international employers of graduates.
Two other columns of data in the 2005 table account for 20 per cent each of the final score for each university – the number of citations for academic papers generated by each staff member and the staff-to-student ratio.
Auckland and Otago are the other New Zealand universities to be named in the year's rankings, both of which benefit from having medical research and teaching schools.
Professor Nigel Long, Assistant Vice-Chancellor Research, says it is a great achievement for three New Zealand universities to be ranked amongst the best in the world.
"It is pleasing to once again be recognised internationally for the quality of our research, research training, and teaching. The ranking really is a credit to our staff who are achieving at an international level and to strive for the best possible learning and research environment for our students.
"The University does well in international rankings because of its strength across many disciplines and especially in key areas such as animal and biological sciences, some areas of social sciences, business and education."
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The University of Auckland has been rated the world's 52nd-best university in The Times Higher Education Supplement's 2005 World University Rankings, up from last year's ranking of 67.
Harvard University is again the world's top institution, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology number two in the rankings, which gauge the views of academics from across the world. Filling the next three places are Cambridge, Oxford and Stanford.
The prestigious rankings were compiled from the results of a worldwide survey of 2,375 academics. These were then combined with measures including the number of times that research papers are cited, staff-to-student ratios, and number of students and staff from overseas. The 2005 analysis included for the first time a measure based on the views of international employers on which universities they prefer to recruit from.
University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Professor Stuart McCutcheon welcomed the news.
"This is good news not only for our students, researchers, teachers and our alumni, but for New Zealand as a whole. One of our goals is to be consistently recognised among the top 50 universities in the world and take our place with world-class universities on the global stage. This requires us to provide a learning environment of the highest quality, leading the advancement of knowledge creation, intellectual discovery and innovation, and helping New Zealand meet its national goals."
The United States has 54 of the top 200 universities, followed by the United Kingdom with 24 and Australia with 17.
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