Patrick Cullen

November 13, 2007

With the release of the Times Higher Education Supplement’s (THES) latest World University Rankings (2007), the LSE has fallen from 17th place in 2006 to 59th – a drop of some 42 places. This is, as the THES says, “particularly chastening” for the School. However, the LSE remains in third place in the league table for the world’s best social science institutions.

By contrast, Imperial College has risen from ninth place to fifth, University College from 25th to ninth, and King’s College from 46th to 24th place. This, the THES says, confirms “London's standing as a global academic centre”.

Howard Davies, the School’s Director, said: “The LSE, as a purely social science college, always fits uncomfortably into the league tables of across-the-board universities, and we have yo-yoed up and down them. We concentrate most, therefore, on our position in the social sciences table, where we remain consistently right up at the top, which reflects where we think we should be, and are.”

The School stated that alterations in the statistical methodology of the THES were responsible for LSE’s lower ranking. A School spokesperson said, “It appears that our exceptional level of internationalisation has been taken less into account than previously; and that more emphasis than previously has been given to citations, which are used less in the social sciences than some other subjects.”
The School added that the LSE’s position remains “very high” in the social science table, coming after only Harvard and Berkeley, and is “an accurate reflection of our strengths”.

The THES points out that “the tables that make up these rankings differ in two important respects” from the previous editions. The paper cites the School as a case where the elimination of single outliers had a “disproportionate effect” on the result, saying that “the method has reduced the disproportionate effect of the LSE's high percentage of international staff and students”.

The LSE remains the world’s best university for international students, with the THES commenting that the School’s appeal is “not hard to discern. Few future economic and social scientists could resist being at a research-based elite university in the heart of one of the world’s most diverse and successful cities, close to many of the world’s top financial markets”.

The LSE has also moved up a place to third best in the world for graduate recruitment, after Oxford and Cambridge. Davies commented that students should “be pleased that we are close to the top of the league of recruiters' assessments”.