The tables have turned

The University of Warwick has reached top scores in international rankings of the top universities in the world in multiple league tables.

In terms of the QS league tables, Warwick came 50th overall. It was ranked highly for some subjects: 46th for Arts and Humanities, 28th for Social Sciences, but not as well for others such as Engineering and IT, for which ranked 130th, and Life Sciences at 153rd.

The University has been steadily climbing the QS league tables, reaching 69th in 2008, 58th in 2009 and 53rd last year.

Warwick is now back in the top 200 international universities according to the Times Higher Education international university tables, ranking 157th overall. Last year, the criteria for the rankings changed, which meant that the data relied more heavily on citations and the influence of academic work, an area in which Warwick does not do as well.

Education Officer at Warwick SU, Sean Ruston, noted that there was a variety of factors that could have led to Warwick’s jump in league tables. Yet he insisted that the reputation of the University was exceptional, considering that Warwick is such a young university.

“Other institutions that were set up around the same time in the 60s are doing nowhere near as well as us, they are far lower,” he explained. “International league tables give far more weight to research and global reputation.”

He also emphasised that Warwick was continually improving: “Every year we’re getting more research funds… our international reputation improves through partnership with other institutions in Australia, America, etc,” he said.

Peter Dunn, Press Officer for the University noted that: “You have to take all these league tables with a large pinch of salt… there are wide variations in where these global tables rank universities and none of them have managed to produce a definitive way of comparing universities across the road.

“One of the issues for the Times Higher global table is its reliance on citations. As citations are far more common in Science than in Arts and the Social Sciences, those universities that are less diverse than Warwick (in that they have a heavier or even exclusive concentration on Science subjects) will obviously seem to perform better under such a measure.”