The University of Texas at Austin is ranked No. 27 in the 2013 Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, a comparison of the world’s top 100 most powerful university brands. The ranking is a five-point climb for the university, which ranked No. 32 in 2012.
The rankings, based on the largest invitation-only survey of academic opinion ever taken, represent expert judgment of senior, published academics, considered to be the audience most knowledgeable about excellence in universities.
“The rankings have rapidly become established as the global index of academic prestige. With only the top 100 universities brands featured in the list, those ranked are in a truly elite group,” said Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education rankings.
The Reputation Rankings are a subsidiary of Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, which list UT Austin as the 25th best university in the world. In addition, U.S. News and World Report ranks UT Austin as the 46th best university in the country, and Kiplinger ranks the university as the 27th best value in public colleges in the country.
“The most valuable assessment is that of one’s peers, and I’m extremely proud that we continue to rise in reputational rankings,” said Bill Powers, president of The University of Texas at Austin. “This is a clear reflection of the excellence of UT Austin’s dedicated faculty, staff and students.”
The university’s climb in this year’s Times Higher Education Reputation Rankings embodies President Powers’ goal of making the university the best public research university in the United States. Accomplishments in recent months alone include:
World-Class Faculty: Chemistry professor Allen Bard and engineering professor John Goodenough were honored at the White House last month with the National Medal of Science, bringing the university’s overall number of recipients to five.
World-Class Students: The Jackson School of Geosciences’ Institute for Geophysics initiated a rapid response science team, made up of students and faculty members, to help map the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the beach/barrier systems of the south shore of Long Island. Two graduate students in the School of Journalism were chosen from 14 students nationwide to contribute to “PBS NewsHour” coverage of the presidential inauguration.
World-Class Initiatives: The Texas Advanced Computing Center in January launched Stampede, one of the largest computing systems in the world for open science research and the latest in a string of supercomputers at UT Austin. The William P. Clements Jr. Center on History, Strategy and Statecraft, to be led by some of the top diplomatic and international historians in the nation, is being established to train leaders in the history of national security and diplomacy.
World-Class Innovation: Last month, the university announced several courses it will offer through edX, a not-for-profit learning platform that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs) to students and the public, creating a global learning community. And the Cockrell School of Engineering has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to establish an Engineering Research Center (ERC) for research into nanomanufacturing, the first ERC designated at UT Austin and only the second in Texas.