Department of Psychology reaches 'Excellence Group' status
02 November 2009
The Department of Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, has been awarded a place in the Excellence Group for Psychology in this year’s CHE Excellence Ranking. This is the second time the CHE - Centre for Higher Education Development in Germany - has completed its annual ranking, this time focusing on the academic disciplines of economics, political science and psychology.
The Psychology department has been awarded Excellence Group status because of its outstanding achievements in citations and publications. The CHE Excellence Ranking is based on performance on five key indicators with either a research orientation (number of publications, including highly cited books and citations in relation to the international standard) or an international dimension (Erasmus-Mundus master's programmes, student mobility and staff mobility).
Professor Elizabeth Kuipers, Head Department of Psychology said: 'The department is delighted to have achieved such prestigious external confirmation of the interest and impact of our clinical and health psychology research.'
For seven different subjects a group of 20 to 60 European universities were selected by their results in research and (for political science, economics and psychology) internationalisation indicators. This selected group of universities is called the 'Excellence Group' of the respective subject. For these Excellence Groups, an institutional survey as well as a student survey was conducted and for outstanding results in any one indicator, a ‘star’ was awarded.
The CHE Excellence Ranking highlights the research strengths of European higher education institutions. In addition to the quantitative measurements, the CHE Excellence Ranking also contains additional information on master's or doctoral programmes, student opinions, research groups and research focal points of given departments as well as accommodation possibilities and study fees.
A total of 34 United Kingdom universities attained Excellence Group status for programmes in economics, political science and psychology. Economics proved particularly strong, with 23 universities achieving Excellence Group status in this discipline, followed by psychology with 22 departments and political science with 21 departments.
The Institute of Psychiatry provides post-graduate education and carries out research in psychiatry, psychology, and allied disciplines, including basic and clinical neurosciences. The Institute is world renowned for the quality of its research and it became a school of King’s College London in August 1997.
The full CHE ExcellenceRanking results are available on www.zeit.de/excellenceranking. For facts and information about the CHE ExcellenceRanking visit www.che-excellenceranking.eu.
The CHE – Centre for Higher Education Development, based in Gütersloh, Germany is an independent institution that is committed to reform of the higher education system. Every year the CHE compiles a new CHE UniversityRanking comparing European HEIs for first-year students. A relatively new initiative, the CHE-ExcellenceRanking provides a comparison of the best European university research facilities for prospective master's and doctoral programme students.