Copenhagen up to 135 on Times ranking

Clawing its way back up after last year’s slide, Copenhagen gains from new international diversity measure. But still lags behind Aarhus

by Mike Young

The University of Copenhagen is back. It is slowly but surely moving up the rankings.

This could be the optimistic conclusion drawn from new scores released from the Times Higher Education World University Ranking one minute after midnight today Thursday. Copenhagen is now ranked 135th, up from a dismal dip to 177th last year. Purists, however, will point to minor changes in methodology.

Best university in the world is now CalTech, California Institute of Technology, ousting Harvard from the top spot.

More details forthcoming

University of Copenhagen's Trine Højbjerg Sand works with rankings at the International Office:

»It is good that we have moved 40 places up. We would have liked to have been top 100, but this is a start,« she says to the University Post.

She is waiting for the specific, more detailed, data set from the Times ranking group. It is due to her today, and she intends to analyse it in more detail.

Aarhus ahead, again

The Times ranking has for the 2011-12 ranking tweaked its methodology yet again, after major reforms last year. The changes last year were at least partially to blame for Copenhagen dropping down from a previous 51st place in the world two years ago, observers noted.

Among one of the minor changes this year, a new category, the proportion of international staff and students at each institution under the category heading ‘international outlook’, and the proportion of research papers co-authored with at least one international partner have been added. Copenhagen scores particularly well on the international outlook category.

Last year, the University of Copenhagen was surpassed by its main Danish competitor Aarhus. To the likely disappointment of Copenhagen’s administrators, the same has happened this year: Aarhus moves up to 125th in the 2011-12 ranking from 167th last year, just ahead of Copenhagen. Other Danish high flyer on this ranking, Denmarks Technical University drops to 178th from 122nd last year.

See the Times rankings here.

No chance to do really well

After last year’s unflattering nosedive from from 51st to 177th, University of Copenhagen’s Director of Communication Jasper Steen Winkel pointed to a weighting of citations rather than publications. This skewed rankings towards science and technology and subjects that publish in English.

Commenting Copenhagen’s steep drop last year, Jasper Steen Winkel said that »all the subjects that are taught and published in Danish for Danish universities, or in other national languages for other European universities, have no chance of doing really well on this ranking,« he said.

On the QS ranking, which uses the Times ranking’s older methodology Copenhagen is this year ranked 52nd in the world.

See the latest Times rankings here.

miy@adm.ku.dk

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