News archive 2004

King’s ranked as world leader in science

13 Dec 2004, PR 79/04

King’s has been placed fourth in the UK and 47th in the world for science-based excellence in a new league table compiled by The Times Higher.

This latest table examines data on science. (See page 9, 10 December 2004, issue 1,670.)

The principal measure used is peer review information from 1,300 active academics across the world. They were asked for their opinions about the top universities in subject areas and regions of which they have expert knowledge.

The data was weighted by area and subject, and the resulting scores were normalised to a maximum of 200 for the top institution. The top five universities were Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, California University, Berkley and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Top ten UK universities

    University     Ranking     Weighted Score
           
  1. Cambridge     (1)     200
  2. Oxford     (2)     169.8
  3. Imperial College     (10)     89.8
  4. King's College     (47)     24.8
  5. Manch & UMIST     (48=)     24.3
  6. Edinburgh     (56)     22.5
  7. UCL     (58)     21.6
  8. Bristol     (71)     19.2
  9. Leeds     (82)     17.1
  10. Durham     (95)     15.3


The Times Higher also displayed a numerical measure of the influence of the research undertaken at the top-rated institutions. The figures used highly cited papers in a range of disciplines. To do well in these tables institutions had to be strong in a number of areas. In this citation ranking King’s is the top university in the UK and joint 14th in the world. The top university was Harvard.

Top international universities for citation impact

    University     Ranking (in table)     Citation impact
           
  1. Harvard     (3)     20.5
  2. Calif Inst of Tech     (9)     17.7
  3. UC Santa Barbara     (32)     17.5
  4. Princeton     (8)     17.4
  5. Stanford     (6)     17.3
  6. Columbia     (28)     16.8
  7. Yale     (14)     16.7
  8. Penn     (51)     16.4
  9. MIT     (5)     16.2
  10. Chicago     (17)     16.1
  11. Calif, Berk     (4)     15.6
  12. UC San Diego     (45)     15.6
  13. John Hopkins     (33)     15.5
  14. King's College     (47)     13.9


In this listing Durham would be rated 17, Cambridge 18, Oxford 21 and Edinburgh 22.

In the coming months, tables for biomedicine, arts, humanities and social science will be published.

Notes to editors

King's College London
King’s is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with 13,800 undergraduate students and some 5,300 postgraduates in ten schools of study. The College had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. King’s is in the top group of five universities for research earnings with income from grants and contracts of more than £93 million (2002-2003) and has an annual turnover of £348 million. King’s is a member of the Russell Group, a coalition of the UK’s major research-based universities.




Further information
Melanie Gardner, Senior Public Relations Officer, King’s College London
Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7848 3202

This information is provided by the Public Relations Department
Tel: 020-7848 3202  Fax: 020-7848 3739  Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk