QS World University Rankings 2018
8 June 2017
Cardiff University has climbed three places in a prestigious ranking of the world’s leading universities.
The fourteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings 2018 published today (Thursday 8th June, 2017) sees Cardiff University placed 137th amongst the world’s 959 top universities.
Cardiff University retains its position as Wales’s highest ranked University and 22nd amongst the 76 UK universities ranked.
Bucking the UK trend
Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University 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 the definitive guide to the world’s top universities.
The expert opinion of 75,015 academics and 40,455 employers contributed with 12.3m papers and 75.1m citations were analysed from the bibliometric database Scopus/Elsevier, to measure the impact of the research produced by the universities ranked.
Future aspirations
Cardiff University’s 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 latest QS World University Rankings follows the publication of the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject earlier this year.
Journalism became Cardiff University’s highest ranked subject (at 34th) breaking in to the world’s top 50 elite institutions in the Communication and Media Studies subject category for the first time.
Other University subjects to feature highly in this year’s QS World University Rankings 2017 include Architecture and the Built Environment (39th) and Psychology (43rd).
In total, Cardiff University subjects featured in 30 of the 46 subjects and in all five facilities featured in the rankings. Ten subjects were ranked in the top 100 compared to eight in 2016 and 23 subjects are ranked in the top 200 compared to 22 last year.
