Southampton ranked among the best in Europe for chemistry researchers
Graduate programmes at the University of Southampton's School of Chemistry have been rated among the best in Europe, in a prestigious European ranking published this week.
Southampton's is one of only seven UK chemistry departments to appear in the Excellence Group of the Ranking of Excellent European Graduate Programmes, drawn up by the Centre for Higher Education Development in Germany, and one of only 25 across Europe.
The School of Chemistry received a gold medal for its citations and two silvers for its publications and highly cited researchers.
The four categories, which are chosen to help students search for a suitable higher education institution for master or doctoral programmes in Europe, cover the number of publications, citations in relation to the international standard, the number of oft-cited authors and the number of projects in the EU's Marie Curie research promotion programme.
Professor John Evans, Head of the School of Chemistry, commented: 'We are delighted that chemistry at Southampton has been so highly rated. We attract many of the best and brightest research students and it is very pleasing to have it recognised that Southampton is one of the best places in Europe to study chemistry at postgraduate level.'
About 500 specialist departments from around 250 HEIs in 20 European countries were identified as part of a pre-selection process for the ranking. These departments were performing particularly well against at least one of the indicators and were accordingly awarded a bronze, silver or gold medal. Departments that won a silver or gold medal attained top group status. Those that won at least three silver medals attained excellence group status. Approximately 120 HEIs won at least one medal and thus attained top group status, but only 25 of them qualified for excellence group status.
The United Kingdom leads the Excellence Group countries with an impressive total of 82 medals across all subjects garnered by 12 English and Scottish universities.
Notes for editors
The CHE - Centre for Higher Education Development, based in Gütersloh, compiles a fresh CHE UniversityRanking each year, comparing German and international HEIs/European HEIs/ HEIs of German speaking countries for first year students.
This is the first year the CHE ExcellenceRanking has provided a comparison of the best European university research facilities for prospective master and doctoral programme students.