The University of Otago has been ranked the top university in New Zealand for publishing high-quality scientific research papers, according to the Nature Publishing Group.
This follows on from last year, where the university was also ranked first, second in 2014, and first again in 2013.
The University of Otago was ranked 303rd out of thousands of other competing universities from around the world. This is an improvement from the last few years, as The University of Otago was ranked 340th in 2015, 351 in 2014 and 349 in 2013.
Nature Index founder David Swinbanks remarked that; “Otago University is an institution that clearly has a hunger to succeed despite its geographic isolation and the Nature Index shows that, for a number of years, it is a growing source of high quality research output”
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) Professor Richard Blaikie said that the university’s ranking “is a welcome confirmation of the calibre and productivity of our researchers, who are continuing to make important contributions to scientific progress internationally.”
The University of Auckland was second in New Zealand, overall ranking at 386th, and Victoria University of Wellington was third in New Zealand, ranking 464th. No other New Zealand institution was ranked in the top 500 universities from around the world. Within New Zealand, GNS science was fourth, then the University of Canterbury fifth.
The Nature Index rankings collate information from over 60,000 research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 different leading natural science journals in order to judge the top scientific research universities globally. The Index is updated monthly, and there is a 12 month rolling window of data openly accessible on their website.