Agriculture News

March 22, 2017

Purdue ranked eighth-best agriculture school in the world

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University ranked eighth out of 300 universities worldwide in agriculture and forestry in 2017, according to a study by the British educational research organization QS Intelligence Unit.

Each year, the organization ranks the best universities in the areas of arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, and social sciences and management. Purdue has placed in the top 10 among agricultural programs in the life sciences division every year since the project began in 2010. Wageningen University of the Netherlands took first place this year.

“While I have said many times that we do not chase rankings, I am proud of the role that our faculty, students and staff play in making this one of the 10 best colleges of agriculture and forestry in the world,” said Jay Akridge, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture. “The reputation we enjoy is because of our people, past and present, all of whom have a fundamental role in delivering the excellence for which our college is known globally.”

The annual ranking is based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. Academic reputation is measured by asking professors and research faculty to identify domestic and international institutions that they consider exemplary in their areas of expertise. For agriculture and forestry, QS Intelligence Unit surveyed more than 74,000 researchers and faculty from around the world.

For the employer reputation metric, more than 40,000 graduate employers around the world were asked to identify domestic and international universities that they consider excellent when hiring recent college graduates. As on the academic reputation scale, employers could choose up to 10 domestic universities and 30 international universities.

Research impact is composed of two scales: number of research paper citations and Hirsch index, a calculation of how many of a researcher’s publications have been cited at least six times by other researchers.

QS Intelligence Unit is a division of Quacquarelli Symonds, Ltd., a company that compiles information and tools for colleges and universities, as well as provide professional networks for graduate students and business executives. In addition to ranking universities by subject each year, QS Intelligence Unit also ranks universities’ overall scores, universities by region, best student cities and universities with highest graduate employment rates.           

Writer: Jessica Merzdorf, 765-494-7719, jmerzdor@purdue.edu

Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-8415;
Shari Finnell, Manager/Media Relations and Public Information, sfinnell@purdue.edu  
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