UC Merced continues to demonstrate academic success, as it was announced today (June 23) that the university ascended to No. 57 on the international 2021 Times Higher Education Young University Rankings, moving up eight places from last year.
This year’s list included 475 of the best universities founded since 1971. Among the young U.S. universities, the campus remained stable from last year’s rankings at No. 3.
“The rise in our rankings as a young university is continued recognition of UC Merced’s accomplishments in world-class research and the quality of learning,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Charles Nies said. “It reflects our collective commitment to student success and the generation of new knowledge for the greater good of our world.”
The 2021 rankings assessed research-intensive universities across all their core missions. The performance indicators are grouped into five areas, including research, teaching and citation, which make up 90 percent of the criteria and knowledge transfer and international outlook.
Research considers the school's reputation for research excellence among its peers, as well as the income and productivity of the research departments. Teaching concentrates on the learning environment, including a reputation survey, staff-to-student ratio and doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio.
The citation category examines research influence by capturing the average number of times that a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally, an indicator that the university is spreading new knowledge and ideas.
Lastly, the other two criteria, international outlook and knowledge transfer, look into the ability of the university to attract undergraduates, postgraduates and faculty from all parts of the world and weighs in the campus capacity to help industry with inventions, innovations and consultancy.
