There was no place for Durham in the latest World University Reputation rankings, despite it only recently retaining its top 100 status in the overall World Rankings.
The World Reputation Rankings, curated by The Times Higher Education supplement, are put together annually using a global invitation-only academic survey.
The league table is based on subjective judgement, but is considered to represent expert judgement of senior academics, “the people best placed to know the most about excellence in our universities” according to the newspaper.
In the survey, scholars of different disciplines, from different countries are asked to name no more than 15 of those they believe to be the best, based on their own experience.
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Imperial, LSE and Edinburgh all made the top 50 in this year’s rankings, while Durham missed out.
In October it was announced that Durham had retained its 80th placing in the THE World University rankings, while it was ranked 90th in the QS rankings.
The University was keen to emphasise that the Reputation rankings are “a very subjective indicator” but acknowledged that it had taken the findings into account.
With Durham University always looking to extend its reputation in a variety of academic fields, the findings of the survey will been seen to deal a blow to Durham’s repute as a global academic organisation.
Joe, a second year Natural Sciences student from Grey, commented: “Its unbelievable to think that Durham, which has always been one of the country’s best universities, is now unable to impress educators abroad as it once did”.
“Its obviously a subjective issue but the university clearly needs to look at how it is being perceived abroad as an academic facility.”
But Chris, a third year Music student, added: “I’m not sure these rankings should be taken too seriously – its just a matter of opinion”.
“The fact that Durham’s still in the top 100 world universities is what should matter really.”
Gabriel Samuels 