League Tables
Newcastle is placed in the global top 200 universities in both the Times Higher Education (THE) and QS rankings published in 2012. The QS table placed Newcastle 126th, a rise on the previous year. The Sunday Times league table (paid access) of UK Universities places Newcastle 17th out of 122 in the UK, and third in the North East and Yorkshire.
Our position on league tables
If you are interested in university league tables, we recommend that you look at as many of them as you can, not just at any particular one.
Different league tables measure different things, so you should check whether the table you are looking at actually measures the things you are interested in. Also, they assign different weights to the things they do measure, so you should know which of the topics they cover they consider to be more important. Small changes in data can make a very big difference in rankings from one year to the next, so you should ideally look at a university’s rankings not just in the current year, but over a period of a few years.
We also recommend that you look at “single topic rankings” such as the National Student Survey or the Employability Rankings, which, because they only measure one thing, rather than bundle together different things, are more reliable.
Many university league tables are compiled and published by newspapers. When you look at them, you should remember that the first priority of a newspaper is to sell a story to the public.
For your convenience, we have prepared the following:
- A list of popular league tables, and what they actually measure
- A list of single topic rankings, and what they measure
- Some examples of how a university’s league table position can change from year to year
- A profile of Newcastle University’s rankings over the past few years
- Finally, if you wish to do some more research on the topic of league tables and rankings, here are some authoritative reports and articles.
Awards
The quality of Newcastle University research has been recognised by the award of two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education. The 2005 award was for a project to address the damage to the environment caused by polluted water from abandoned mine workings, and the 2009 award recognised our research in the field of ageing and health.
The University has received national recognition for its Library and Estates teams, winning the 2011'Outstanding Library Team' and 'Outstanding Estates Team' categories in the THE Leadership and Management Awards.
Newcastle has also been shortlisted in the Excellence and Innovation in the Arts, Widening Participation Initiative of the Year and Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development categories in the 2011 THE Awards.