University bucks trend to climb up rankings

A WELSH university has climbed three places in a prestigious ranking of the world’s leading universities while the two others making the list have fallen.

The 14th edition of the QS World University Rankings 2018 sees Cardiff University placed 137th amongst the world’s 959 top universities.

Cardiff retains its position as Wales’ highest-ranked university and 22nd amongst the 76 UK universities listed.

Across the UK, 16 of 24 Russell Group universities have fallen in the listing since last year.

Cardiff University – one of the risers – is among three of the eight universities in Wales to appear in the league table regarded as the bible of global higher education.

Swansea University is down from 390th place last year to be joint placed in 431 to 440th position with universities including Florida State.

Bangor University comes in at joint 441 to 450th place with institutions including Oregon State – a slight fall from its joint position of 441 to 420 last year.

Cardiff University vice chancellor Professor Colin Riordan said: “The rise in the QS World University Rankings 2018 is pleasing given the uncertainty and immense challenges that UK universities have faced over the last year or so.

“In a UK context, 11 of the 16 ranked Russell Group institutions experienced downward movements with 51 of the UK’s 76 ranked universities experiencing falls.

“Therefore it is especially pleasing to see we have bucked the UK trend and, despite all of the uncertainty we’ve faced, we have still been able to achieve a small but important rise.”

The QS World University Rankings is viewed as the definitive guide to the world’s top universities.

Expert opinion of 75,015 academics and 40,455 employers contribute to the league table with 12.3 million papers and 75.1 million citations analysed to measure the impact of the research produced by the universities ranked.

Cardiff University said its aspiration is to become a world top 100 university.

Professor Riordan added: “Our aim is to be consistently ranked amongst the world’s top 100 universities. Of course, there is always room for improvement and maintaining our global position in teaching, research and innovation requires continued investment and hard work.

“Whilst we still have some way to go to achieve our overall aim, this result is a step in the right direction and is testimony to the hard work of our dedicated and world-leading academic staff.”

The list follows the publication of the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject earlier this year.