Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

UC San Diego Nets Another Top Global Ranking

Times Higher Education has named UC San Diego the 41st top university in the publication’s World Reputation Rankings. The reputation rankings complement the Times’ annual World University Rankings, last published in fall 2014, in which UC San Diego was also ranked 41st.

The 2015 reputation rankings are based on the world’s largest invitation-only survey of academic opinion, featuring 10,500 respondents who include senior, published scholars from 142 countries.

“It is an honor for UC San Diego to be recognized as a global academic powerhouse,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “This ranking is attributable to the talent and excellence of everyone at UC San Diego—from our bright students and successful alumni, to our stellar faculty, researchers and staff, to our exceptional and generous supporters.”

UC San Diego has a growing reputation for fostering a culture of collaboration that sparks discoveries, advances society and drives economic impact.

Khosla added, “A primary driver of our competitiveness is the ability of our researchers to think and work across disciplines. We develop innovative approaches to solve complex problems.”

For example:

• UC San Diego is leading Cal-BRAIN, a state-wide complement to the BRAIN Initiative announced by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2013. Cal-BRAIN provides research funding and training to develop new brain-mapping techniques and technologies. UC San Diego played a significant role in sparking the national BRAIN Initiative and has established its own Center for Brain Activity Mapping.
• The Qualcomm Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology illustrates UC San Diego’s multidisciplinary approach. By leveraging strength in computer science, researchers have collaborated to extend the application of cutting-edge communications technology into diverse fields.
• Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are known for pushing ahead with unique programs in partnership with medical and biological researchers at the university to determine what medicines and pharmaceutical drugs could be developed from raw materials found in the sea.
• In a bold step to more quickly translate the regenerative power of stem cells into real-world therapies, U.S. businessman and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford committed $100 million to the creation of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center, a UC San Diego-based effort that will speed discoveries of new drugs and treatments for patients.
• UC San Diego is home to the first and only Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, honoring the vision of “2001: A Space Odyssey” author Arthur C. Clarke. The center continues the work of the late author and innovator by integrating the arts, sciences, humanities, engineering and medicine to produce a new theoretical framework to understand and harness human imagination.

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings come just months after UC San Diego was named a top research university worldwide by other rankings organizations. The campus was named the 14th best university in the world for the second consecutive year by the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). UC San Diego was also named the 20th best by the Center for the World University Rankings (CWUR) and UC San Diego took the No. 18 spot in U.S. News & World Report’s first-ever global ranking of universities.

For more information on UC San Diego’s rankings, go to its Campus Profile.

For more information on the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, click here.