NOVA in Top Rankings

 Quality vs Quality

Top international rankings classify universities using indicators that measure quantities and quality factors - some focus on quantitative aspects (total number of students, faculty or publications) while others on quality factors, using standard indicators or ratios.

In 2011, NOVA ranked amongst the top 400 universities in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES).

THES indicators are ratios that allow to consider the different dimensions of universities and cover various aspects of the university activity: teaching (30% of the final classification), research volume (30%), research impact measured by the number of received citations (30%), private financing for research (2,5%) and international outlook (7,5%)

It should be noted that NOVA’s result in private financing for research, leads the 4 Portuguese universities featuring in the top 400. NOVA also had a high classification in the international outlook, for which the percentage of publications in international coauthoring was a determining factor.

NOVA’s good performance in the international outlook is also visible in the high classification in the parameter that measures students’ internationalization in QS World University Ranking 2011. The ratio faculty/students was another parameter where NOVA stood out. In regard to rankings focused on research that measure the impact of scientific publications (number of times the articles are cited by other researchers), the Iberian American ranking Scimago shows that the impact of NOVA is clearly higher that the average analyzed university, from Portugal, Spain and Latin America. The studies conducted by the Center for Science & Technology Studies of Leiden University show that both internationally and globally, NOVA’s impact is equivalent to the world average. In some areas, the international recognition of research quality reflects an impact higher that the average and in a great number of cited articles. This happens in the areas of Chemistry Engineering, Plant Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitology, Infectious Diseases, Food Science and Technology, Applied Mathematics.

Nova School of Business and Economics (NOVA SBE) moved 34 positions in the Financial Times 2011 ranking, and is now in the top 40 European schools in management.