Wednesday 29 April 2015 12:15pm
Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne
The 2015 QS World University Subject Rankings has identified the University of Otago's Dental School as among the top 10 best in the world. Dentistry was included as a subject for the first time this year and Otago was ranked 8th.
Dentistry is the highest-ranked subject from any New Zealand university in the latest rankings, and the first subject taught at a New Zealand University to ever feature in the world's top ten.
University of Otago Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne says she is delighted that the School of Dentistry's international reputation for excellence has been formally recognised through the QS rankings.
“I would like to pay tribute to the School's staff for their commitment to providing high quality undergraduate and postgraduate education while also undertaking internationally leading research,” Professor Hayne says.
The University had already identified the School as a top performer and made a strategic decision to invest in a major re-development of its facilities with work scheduled to begin in November, she says.
Dentistry was joined by Psychology (ranked 31st) as one of two Otago subjects to feature in the world's top 50. English Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, Geography, Development Studies, Education and Law at Otago also featured in the world's top 100.
Otago also featured in the 101-150 band for Computer Science and Information Systems, Medicine, Biological Sciences, Earth and Marine Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies, Politics and International Studies. Linguistics, Modern Languages, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Chemistry, Economics and Econometrics, and Statistics and Operations Research were further subjects in which Otago was rated as being in the top 200 internationally.
In total this gives Otago 23 subjects judged to be in the world's top 200, up from 19 subjects last year.
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).
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