St Andrews named among top in world

The University of St Andrews is one of the top 100 in the world, according to a new international league table published today (Tuesday 11 September 2012.)

Scotland’s oldest university is placed 93rd in the QS World University Rankings 2012/2013, published today at www.topuniversities.com.

St Andrews has improved its standing in the annual global league table, moving up four places from last year, and improving its scores for academic reputation, its reputation amongst employers and the number of times its research is cited by other universities across the world.

The new ranking gives St Andrews high marks for the reputation of its Arts & Humanities faculty, its track record in preparing high-quality graduates for the job market and ability to attract the best international staff and students.

This year, St Andrews has also achieved high scores in Life Sciences and Medicine, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and Management.

The rankings examined the performance of over 700 universities worldwide. One of the largest and most extensive listings of its kind, the QS league table considers a range of factors including academic reputation, research strengths, citations, reputation amongst graduate employers and international influence.

The new table rates the University of St Andrews’ research output as ‘Very High’, while its Arts & Humanities faculty is ranked 70th in the world.

St Andrews is ranked particularly highly – 16th in the world – for its ability to attract students and staff from overseas. Approximately 41% of students and 37% of staff at the Fife university come from outwith the UK.

“This is an encouraging result for the University, our staff and our students. As a research intensive university, our global reputation largely relies on the number of times our work is cited by other academics so it is very gratifying to see that in the past year alone our citations have grown by more than 7,000 to over 48,000,” said Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Louise Richardson.

“All who work and study here can take pride in the fact that St Andrews is playing a central role in promoting Scotland as a world class centre for research, teaching and the education of global graduates.“

Last year, an independent economic impact assessment found that St Andrews’ international reputation and links helped generate over £300 million a year for the Fife and Scottish economies and that the University supports over 9,000 Scottish jobs.

ENDS