UC Santa Cruz moves up in worldwide ranking

UC Santa Cruz is continuing its ascent in a ranking of the world’s universities.

The campus ranked No. 83 internationally and No. 43 within the United States, according to Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published by a Shanghai education-consulting firm.

In 2014 and 2015, the campus ranked 93. Before that, it was listed in the 101-150 category.

Additionally, UC Santa Cruz ranks No. 1 in the world for the percent of papers in natural sciences and mathematics published in the 20 most highly-cited journals in the world, such as Science, Nature, and others. The 100 point score is listed as “TOP score.”

The annual study by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, a firm spun off several years ago from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, looks at more that 1,200 universities in the world and publishes data on what it deems are the top 500.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities evaluates universities based on six criteria: the number of recipients of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals among alumni and staff; the number of Highly Cited Researchers; the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science; the number of articles in the Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index; and per capita performance.

Nine UC campuses placed in the top 200. Harvard University ranked first, Stanford University, second, UC Berkeley, third, University of Cambridge, fourth, and MIT fifth.

Details on the ARWU methodology, along with the complete list of academic rankings for 2014 and prior years, may be found at the ARWU website.