UTSA ranked No. 53 among top world universities under 50 years old

Main Building, UTSA Main Campus
(Photo by Mark McClendon)

By Claire Jenkins
Public Affairs Specialist

(June 14, 2012) -- The University of Texas at San Antonio was ranked No. 53 among 100 universities under 50 years old by Times Higher Education (THE). The school rankings, published in the May 31 edition of the London-based magazine, were based on the performance indicators of research, citations, teaching, international outlook and industry income.

THE publishes annually the World University Rankings, but this is the first year it has published the 100 Under 50 report focusing solely on young institutions.

"It is clear that the vast majority of the world's best research-led universities share a core element in common: they are old," said Phil Baty, editor of THE Rankings. "This report is not about the traditional elites; it is about a new breed of global universities -- those that have managed to join the world's top table in just decades, not centuries, and others showing great promise, institutions that could reach the top, given time."

Under the area of research, the three indicators used to establish rankings were the university's research volume, income and prestige. The performance indicator of citations examines an institution's research influence by capturing the numbers of times its published works were cited by scholars around the world. The teaching category's indicators were based on the Thomson Reuters Academic Reputations Survey, faculty-to-student ratio, ratio of Ph.D. to bachelor's degrees awarded by each institution and institutional income scaled against academic staff members.

The international outlook category looked at both diversity on campus and how each university's faculty collaborated with international colleagues on research projects. A university's ability to reinforce industry with innovations, inventions and consultancy was the final performance indicator in determining the rankings.

Other U.S. universities to make the top 100 list were the University of California at Irvine; University of California at Santa Cruz; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; University of Texas at Dallas; George Mason University; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and Florida International University.

"We are honored UTSA is one of only nine schools in the United States to be recognized as a top young university," said John Frederick, UTSA provost and vice president for academic affairs. "I think it goes to show that with a little ingenuity and creativity, emerging universities can achieve in a relatively short time the quality that much older institutions develop over generations."

-------------------------------------------------

The University of Texas at San Antonio is one of the largest of nine academic universities and sixth health institutions in the UT System. As a multicultural institution of access and excellence, UTSA aims to be a national research university providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.

UTSA serves nearly 31,000 students in more than 135 degree programs in the colleges of Architecture, Business, Education, and Human Development, Engineering, Honors, Liberal and Fine Arts, Public Policy, Sciences and Graduate School. Founded in 1969, UTSA is an intellectual and creative resource center and a socioeconomic development catalyst for Texas and beyond.