U.S. News & World Report ranks VCU among the best global universities – VCU News

By Brian McNeill

In its rating of the Finest International Universities, U.S. Information and World Report lists Virginia Commonwealth University among the many prime 20% on the earth, tied at No. 439 out of two,165 private and non-private establishments within the U.S. and greater than 90 different nations.

The rankings are based mostly on 13 indicators that measure universities’ educational analysis efficiency and their international and regional reputations. A number of particular applications at VCU are ranked notably extremely within the international rankings, together with gastroenterology and hepatology (No. 17), surgical procedure (No. 86), cardiac and cardiovascular methods (No. 132), psychiatry and psychology (No. 138), neuroscience and conduct (No. 193) and radiology, nuclear drugs and imaging (No. 195).

Fotis Sotiropoulos, Ph.D., VCU’s provost and senior vp for tutorial affairs, mentioned the rating acknowledges the momentum of VCU’s analysis enterprise, VCU’s influence and the scholarly and analysis excellence of its school.

Why is it important for VCU to be ranked among the many greatest international universities?

Properly, for a variety of causes. Initially, as we attempt to broaden our worldwide footprint, whether or not by means of analysis collaboration with school and universities from all world wide or by means of our diploma program alternatives to develop worldwide pupil enrollment at VCU, being ranked among the many prime universities on the earth is essential. Status is essential. Status issues.

And simply to provide you a way of why, not too long ago I used to be a part of a bunch from VCU that visited Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and India, the place we met with institutional leaders, school, employees and college students to discover potential worldwide partnerships. In these nations, in addition to others the place VCU members have not too long ago visited, we heard loud and clear that these universities and fogeys from overseas need to ship their college students to the U.S., however they need to ship them to universities which can be very respected and extremely ranked. 

In order that’s No. 1. Additional, the necessity to enhance our international fame is essential for attracting and retaining gifted college students, trainees in addition to world class school. Lastly, enhancing our rating can be key to enhancing our home fame. It reveals that our school, postdoctoral trainees, employees and college students are participating in advancing analysis that issues and that their work makes an influence that’s acknowledged by friends across the globe.

These rankings are totally different from the U.S. Information & World Report undergraduate rankings, proper? What ought to be folks’s most important takeaway from this recognition?

There are two sorts of U.S. Information rankings. So not too long ago, as an example, we ranked within the prime 30 public universities for innovation. In order that’s superb too.

However the undergraduate U.S. Information rankings are the primary factor that college students and fogeys are when deciding which college to attend. We all know that the very first thing somebody does after they hear a couple of college is that they Google it and see the place it ranks in U.S. Information & World Report. Prefer it or not, that’s what folks do. However that’s the undergraduate rating. So there, we rank sixth amongst our Virginia friends.

However in these international rankings, once more by U.S. Information, we rank No. 3 in Virginia. The rationale why it’s totally different is as a result of it’s a special components. Various things are counted right here. In these world rankings, the primary — truly the one — aspect that makes up the algorithm, it’s all about analysis output, scholarly excellence, citations of the analysis that your school are performing, worldwide collaborations, what number of books your school have written, what number of conferences they go to, and the analysis fame within the worldwide neighborhood.

So these rankings are all about analysis excellence and status when it comes to the analysis that we do. 

This rating [arrives] within the context of VCU breaking one analysis funding document after one other. We’re an R1 college, which suggests we’re among the many 146 universities within the U.S. which can be ranked for very excessive analysis exercise. But in addition, this yr, we simply broke an all-time document of greater than $405 million in sponsored analysis. Proper now we rank No. 58 within the U.S. amongst public universities for federally funded analysis expenditures, per the Nationwide Science Basis, and we’re on our technique to reaching even increased. 

We’re climbing in analysis status and fame very, very quickly. And this worldwide rating is a testomony to the affect and the status and the significance of the analysis that VCU school are doing.

One other factor that goes into the components for this rating is how most of the school are among the many prime 1% of most-cited scientists on the earth. 

Stanford College yearly publishes an inventory of all of the researchers from all around the world who are within the top 2% of the most-cited researchers, each at the moment and all through their careers. Seems we’ve got over 200 VCU school on that listing. It’s actually spectacular. 

To me, what is admittedly essential right here is that this explicit rating highlights the momentum of our analysis enterprise, the influence we make and the scholarly and analysis excellence of our school. 

And it’s my hope that this rating can be going to assist our undergraduate rankings. The extra we make the tales identified about how nice VCU is when it comes to the analysis that we do, that’s going to inadvertently have an effect on positively what we’re making an attempt to do on the undergraduate rankings as properly. 

A number of VCU applications — comparable to gastroenterology and hepatology, surgical procedure, scientific drugs, psychiatry and psychology — are particularly extremely ranked globally. What stands out essentially the most to you about that?

Properly, to start with, the one large conclusion, which once more, correlates with our general analysis expenditures, is that in case you have a look at our sponsored analysis, an enormous chunk — the bulk — comes from our well being system. And at most universities which have a well being system, particularly with a College of Medication, that is additionally true just because the funds from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being is a lot larger than the analysis budgets from different federal businesses such because the NSF, the departments of Power, Schooling and so forth. So, in case you do analysis associated to well being, you might have entry to a lot extra funding. As well as, medical faculties related to well being methods are in a position to conduct scientific trials. So, general, extra funding there means our school are very properly supported to have the ability to do scholarship, to publish extra papers to current their analysis. It’s not a coincidence, the 2 are correlated. 

And I believe, to me, the particular applications which can be rating very properly, it reveals that we’ve got in our well being system some researchers who’re actually, actually within the higher echelon on the earth. There’s little question about this. As an illustration, Dr. Ken Kendler, who’s VCU’s most-cited researcher, is listed 66th general for profession and is the world’s second-most-cited psychiatrist and first within the subfield of neurology/neurosurgery.

Likewise, the director of the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health, Dr. Arun Sanyal, is one other of our prime researchers on the earth in terms of citations. And Dr. Todd Stravitz, whose reward helped launch the institute, can be on the Stanford listing.

Alongside these traces, on my latest journey to Dubai, I met an alumnus from our College of Engineering in Abu Dhabi. We drove from Dubai to Abu Dhabi to have lunch with him. And he was telling me this story of how his spouse’s father had points with liver most cancers. He advised us that they’d him handled in England, they usually requested the docs: Who’s the highest identify on the earth in terms of liver illness? They usually advised him that there’s this man named Arun Sanyal at VCU. So it’s that form of influence. And it’s not solely Ken and Arun, however there are a number of others at VCU who’re at that degree.

How do you see VCU accelerating its analysis momentum? 

An thrilling piece to that is that VCU President Michael Rao has charged our college to aspire to surpass half a billion {dollars} in sponsored analysis. Whereas we’ve got raced from $310 million in 2019 to      $405 million proper now, getting this further hundred in new analysis funding goes to be a lot tougher.  However we’ve got a possibility to get there by strategically investing in and rising the connections between all the nice work that’s occurring on the well being campus with the remainder of VCU. There are great alternatives for synergies between, amongst others, engineering, physics, arts, chemistry and biology with the College of Medication and different well being sciences models. However this won’t occur organically and can want strategic investments, dedication to data creation and transformative innovation by means of management, focus and staff science-based strategy that integrates college students and school throughout disciplines.

So on one hand, this particular rating highlights the excellence of our well being system. Then again, it paints a path for us to go to the subsequent degree general as a college as ONE VCU, and that we are able to do this by higher constructing analysis connections throughout the well being sciences, STEM, social sciences, arts and humanities fields amongst our campuses right here and in Doha, Qatar.