Edinburgh up 10 places to 11th

I got the independent today and Edinburgh uni has gone from 21st in their rankings to 11th! Student satisfaction still isn't massively high but accademic services spend, research and entry standards are all at the top end!

It's good to see edinburgh getting back to where it should be

Reply 1

RamocitoMorales

I noticed it myself and think it's well deserved. Edinburgh is a good university and is of a different class compared with the likes of Loughborough and Lancaster.

But I'd still rather go Glasgow.

University of Edinburgh

link?

my cousin goes there he'll be pleased!

Reply 4

FTC199

AshleyT

link?

it's not online but it is in a newspaper if you bought one!

Reply 5

0404343m

Ah the academic yoyo that is league tables. I'm glad/disappointed that uni x has gone up/down y places this year (debate and delete as appropriate). The new rae has done what plenty of peope said it would, and favour a high average over lots of staff. Since it follows that its harder to maintain 1500 staff than 150, then you'd expect using this method that new unis profit- and hertfordshire is above aberdeen. The big universities which submitted to more rae areas than the others, glasgow, leeds, bham, manchester and to an extent liverpool and newcastle, all dropped down significantly. While edinburgh is very good, submitting to 38 rae areas vs manchesters 54 and glasgows 49 might just explain a few things in regards to why they went in opposite directions. Even on tsr people are starting to ignore them, hopefully some people are seeing some sense... Oh, and never use a blackberry to browse tsr, its awful :-(

Reply 6

nearlyheadlessian

0404343m

While edinburgh is very good, submitting to 38 rae areas vs manchesters 54 and glasgows 49 might just explain a few things in regards to why they went in opposite directions.

If I remember correctly, I believe that Edinburgh submitted work from rather more staff than Glasgow and it was from a generally high proportion. Edinburgh submitted work of 1640 of their staff while Glasgow only submitted 1160. It's all numbers in the end - I merely wanted to point out that contrary to what you said, Edinburgh had the fifth highest number of staff in the 2008 RAE. Check out the Guardian's table.

Reply 7

0404343m

Indeed- but its still a quality vs quantity debate. The RAE was divided into areas, 68 in all, and Manchester, followed by Oxbridge, then Birmingham/Glasgow submitted to the most areas, effectively spreading their resources thinner. Edinburgh have directed theirs towards around a dozen areas less, and got generally better scores for it. I'd imagine if Manchester were allowed to jettison 15 subject areas and use that money to improve the other 40, they'd post a better 'average' too- ditto Birmingham, Glasgow and Leeds (and three of these four have 35000+ students, vs Glasgow and Edinburgh's 22,000 or so). Glasgow and Edinburgh have broadly the same income and research activity- Glasgow's is spread thinner, Edinburgh employ lots of researchers in certain specialist centres, and don't get me wrong, have deservedly done very well. I'm not taking issue with this- more with the way the table reflects it. For example, Glasgow and Edinburgh are head to head in 34 RAE areas, and Glasgow is ahead of Edinburgh in four more than Edinburgh tops it in, but while some areas are, for argument's sake 2.75 vs 2.6 (History) in Glasgow's favour- others are 3.00 vs 2.45 in Edinburgh's favour, thus giving them a higher average. Its all about how you interpret the statistics- I don't believe you can take multifaculty institutions and compare research in such a broad way, and a university which either teaches or leads in many areas is relegated downward because of a lesser average. This is particularly pertinent with Aberdeen- it teaches a wide range of subjects on a lower budget with less students than Glasgow or Edinburgh, is located so far north as to struggle to attract thousands of top students consistently, and ends up just inside the top 50. I think anyone thats had any experience of Aberdeen would say there's very little difference between it and the other ancients- certainly not 20-40 places in a journalist's table.

Also, on the point of expenditure- lots of this comes through five and ten year plans- only what was spent last year count on this though. The effect of this is a yo-yo of sorts, as money comes and goes and universities can look better or worse, where in reality they haven't exactly changed overnight from a week before the table was published. Nottingham, when it was spending money and investing, was around the top 10. Now it is 10 places lower because the money has been invested, and now doesn't need to. But is it a lesser university because the money wasn't spent last year? Of course not. Prof Andrew Oswald of Warwick has been scathing of these tables, and with good reason too, if anyone wants to kill a few minutes- read his articles.

Reply 8

artorscience?

AshleyT

link?

The Independent's (Complete University Guide) 2010 Higher Education guide is reported here. (A simple google search is all you need) As well as being published online and in the paper yesterday, it can be found here, on the Complete University Guide's page.