UC San Diego Ranked 6th in World for ‘High-Quality Science’

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The University of California San Diego ranked 6th among leading research institutions in the world for “high-quality science,” based on its research publications in highly selective science journals.

The global assessment and rankings were conducted by Nature Index, a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships, and appeared in a supplement in today’s issue of the scientific journal Nature.

The rankings were determined by assessing publications in leading science journals from research institutions around the world over the most recent five years, from January, 1, 2012 to December 31, 2016.

UC San Diego was ranked 3rd best in California, behind Stanford University and UC Berkeley, and ahead of Caltech, UCLA, UC San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara.

The top-ranked institutions in the global list ahead of UC San Diego were, in order, Harvard University, Stanford University, MIT, UC Berkeley and Yale University.

“Our stellar position in this global ranking speaks volumes about the exceptional quality of the research conducted at UC San Diego, as well as the exceptional talents of our faculty and other researchers on campus,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla.

“UC San Diego’s consistently high ranking in this global indicator of high-quality research, and other global assessments of our research enterprise, demonstrate that the public investments made in our research and education enterprise are being maximized on our campus,” said Vice Chancellor for Research Sandra A. Brown.

Last month, the campus was recognized by U.S. News and World Report as the nation’s 5th best public university in its fourth annual global rankings, which measure factors such as research, global and regional reputation; international collaboration; as well as the number of highly-cited papers and doctorates awarded.

According to this year’s Nature Index rankings, UC San Diego scored high in all four research areas that were ranked by discipline. In Earth and Environmental Sciences, UC San Diego ranked 6th in the world, 7th in Life Sciences, 16th in Chemistry and 20th in Physical Sciences.

UC San Diego has long been consistently rated as one of the top universities in the world. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) named the campus the globe’s 15th best. In addition, the campus was named the globe’s 16th best university by U.S. News and World Report and Times Higher Education recently listed UC San Diego 31st worldwide.