Posted October 6, 2015

Temple rises in U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings

Faculty research fuels 25-spot leap

International flags in lobby of Alter Hall

Joseph V. Labolito

In the 2016 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities released on Tuesday, Temple University was ranked No. 356 in the world, up 25 spots from last year’s edition.

Temple’s rankings momentum has gone international. In the 2016 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities released on Tuesday, Temple University was ranked No. 356 in the world, up 25 spots from last year’s edition.

Temple now ranks above several prestigious universities, including Boston College, Southern Methodist University and Tulane University.

U.S. News ranked Temple No. 31 in the world for the number of PhDs awarded and No. 105 for PhDs awarded per academic faculty member.

The spike in Temple’s Best Global Universities ranking was fueled by several key sub-rankings that capture the growing reputation of Temple’s faculty and the momentum of the university’s research enterprise, including

a 25-spot jump in “global research reputation,”
a 20-spot increase in “total citations” (a measure of the influence of faculty research publications) and
a 30-spot leap in the number of Temple faculty publications that are among the world’s 10 percent most cited.

Shanghai rankings: Record highs

Temple also climbed the recently released Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), known as the “Shanghai ranking.” The university was ranked 301st–400th in the 2015 ARWU, which has been published annually since 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities at China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Temple earned its highest-ever AWRU ranking in several important areas in 2015, including economics and business (ranked 51st–75th in the world, tied with Brown, Johns Hopkins and others); social science (ranked 76th–100th, tied with Emory, Georgia Tech and others); and computer science (ranked 101st–150th, tied with Indiana, Virginia and others).

Like the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings, faculty research drives the Shanghai ranking. Metrics that contributed to Temple’s standing include

increases in the number of highly cited researchers, such as Laurence Steinberg in Psychology and Paul Pavlou in Management Information Systems;
the number of faculty papers published in the journals Nature and Science;
the number of faculty papers in the Science Citation and Social Science Citation indices; and
“per capita academic performance,” a measure of faculty research productivity.

“Great universities have great faculties—it’s a fundamental principle of higher education,” said Temple President Neil D. Theobald. “I’m gratified that others are recognizing what our students and alumni already know: Temple’s community of scholars is world-class. And with Temple continuing to recruit the best researchers from around the world, I expect our global reputation to keep rising.”

Other factors

Another factor in Temple’s Best Global Universities ranking was its position as a leader in the awarding of doctoral degrees. U.S. News ranked Temple No. 31 in the world for the number of PhDs awarded and No. 105 for PhDs awarded per academic faculty member.

U.S. News also ranked Temple among the world’s leaders in two subject areas: psychiatry/psychology (No. 121) and social sciences and public health (No. 171).

Temple’s rise in the Best Global Universities rankings comes on the heels of the university's all-time-high ranking of No. 115 in the 2016 edition of U.S. News Best Colleges. Temple’s Best Colleges ranking has jumped six spots since the 2015 edition and 17 spots since the 2012 edition, making it one of the nation’s fastest-rising public national universities.

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- Hillel Hoffmann