Tuesday 22 March 2016 4:29pm
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Vernon Squire
The University of Otago welcomed today's release of the 2016 QS World University Rankings by Subject, in which Otago ranked among the top 100 institutions in the world in 13 subject areas.
The 13 subjects in the 2016 world's top 100 are Archaeology, Anthropology, Business & Management Studies, Dentistry, Development Studies, Earth & Marine Sciences, Education, English Language & Literature, Geography, History, Law, Performing Arts, and Psychology. Dentistry and Psychology also came in within the top 50, ranking 12th and 38th respectively.
Otago also featured in the 101-150 bands in Accounting & Finance, Biological Sciences, Medicine, Modern Languages, Politics & International Studies. Communication & Media Studies, Computer Science & Info Systems, Economics & Econometrics, Environmental Sciences, Pharmacy & Pharmacology, and Philosophy were further subjects in which Otago was rated as being in the top 200 internationally.
In total this means Otago has 24 subjects judged to be in the world's top 200, up from 20 subjects last year. Dentistry, Otago's top-ranked discipline, remains the highest-ranked subject internationally for any New Zealand university.
The QS subject rankings are derived on the basis of a combination of factors including Academic Reputation (how academics from other universities rate a university in a particular subject area), Employer Reputation (how employers rate a university in a particular subject area), and citations (the extent to which the work of an academic in a subject areas is quoted or referenced in the work of others).
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Vernon Squire says that Otago's pleasing showing in the QS subject rankings reflect Otago's broad and deep capabilities across a range of academic disciplines.
“Our solid performance in these rankings follows the University last month being awarded the highest possible international quality rating of five stars plus from QS Stars rating system,” Professor Squire noted.
QS Stars is a quality evaluation system in which universities are assigned a stars rating based upon their performance in an institution-wide review.
The five star plus rating is a mark of quality and excellence that is awarded to universities described by QS as “an institution (that) is not just world-class, but an elite destination to which the very best students and faculty worldwide will aspire. Its brand name will transform the résumé of anyone connected with it”.
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