Rice ranked among world’s top 100 universities

Chemistry and field of natural sciences/mathematics among top 50

Rice University was again ranked among the top 100 universities around the globe in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published this month by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Rice placed among the top 50 in the subject of chemistry and the field of natural sciences and mathematics, just as it did in 2011.

In the 2012 ARWU rankings, Rice moved up to No. 91 from last year’s position at 93. The rankings are based on the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and fields medals, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science, the number of articles in the Science Citation Index — Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index and per capita performance.

Fifty-three of the schools among the top 100 in the world are universities in the United States, including No. 1-ranked Harvard. Rice is one of only four universities in Texas that made the top 100, along with The University of Texas at Austin (No. 35), The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (No. 48) and Texas A&M University (No. 93).

In ARWU’s comparison of world universities by broad subject fields, Rice ranked No. 48 in natural sciences and mathematics (No. 47 last year), and it tied for Nos. 51-75 in social sciences and in engineering/technology/computer sciences (both fields were tied for Nos. 52-75 last year).

In the rankings by subject, Rice was No. 27 in chemistry, just as it was in 2011. It tied for Nos. 51-75 in mathematics, computer science and economics/business (similar to last year). In physics, for which Rice did not make the ranking last year, Rice tied for Nos. 101-150.

More than 1,200 universities are ranked by ARWU every year, and the best 500 are published.

For more information on the rankings, visit http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.