OREANDA-NEWS. July 27, 2011. The reputable "QS World University Rankings" system evaluates the position of University of Tartu in life sciences (biology, medicine, psychology) to be between 301 and 350, amongst the 15 000 universities listed. According to ISI Web of Knowledge database ESI, the University belongs to the 1% of the world’s most influential institutions in six fields of research. The latest addition to these was geosciences, reported the press-centre of University of Tartu.

University of Tartu vice rector for research Kristjan Haller stressed the significance of this ranking. "The ranking depends largely on our reputation in the world concerning these fields of research – and this requires very high academic quality and international prestige," commented Haller on the ranking.

Haller proposes that our reputation is so high because of the Estonian Genome Center and also our psychologists, doctors and molecular biologists belonging to many highly regarded professional or scientific associations. "This is what our university wants to achieve internationally – being a visible and attractive research center for certain fields," Haller added that such a high ranking sends also a positive message for future and present students of the university.

According to the university vice rector, the university has set its preferences with its development fund and these are largely related to life and natural sciences. "We are looking at the larger scale of things and do not support only single institutes or projects, we are rather aiming for synergy between different research fields. University of Tartu has several fields that are close to world’s top quality," said Haller.

University of Tartu has been at the 551.-600. position in QS Rankings since 2009. As of 2011, the ranking system finds the top universities for five fields of research: humanities, natural sciences, engineering and information technology, social sciences; and life sciences.

ESI (Essential Science Indicators) database accounts for the number of articles and references when calculating the institutions influence ranking. University of Tartu has belonged to the best 1% of the world in the following fields: chemistry, clinical medicine, botany and animal sciences, environmental sciences and ecology, general social sciences; and materials science.

Additional data: www.topuniversities.com