06 Dec 07

The University of Oxford has been presented with gold medals in biology, chemistry, and mathematics in the Centre for Higher Education Development’s ‘excellent European graduate programmes’ awards.

The CHE ExcellenceRanking provides a comparison of the best European University research facilities for prospective master and doctoral programme students.

The awards ranked over 500 specialist departments from over 250 Higher Education Institution in Europe, on the basis of four indicators. These include the number of publications, citations in relation to the international standard, number of oft-cited authors, and number of projects in the EU’s Marie Curie research promotion programme.

Oxford University’s biology, chemistry, and mathematics departments were awarded gold medals in all four categories, achieving Excellence Group status. The University’s physics department was awarded Top Group status, with two gold medals and a bronze medal.

The United Kingdom leads the Excellence Group countries with an impressive total of 82 medals across all subjects achieved by 12 English and Scottish universities.

The Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE), based in Gütersloh, Germany, is an independent institution that is committed to reform of the higher education system. In addition to the quantitative measurements, the CHE ExcellenceRanking also contains information on master or doctoral programmes, research groups and research focal points of given departments, as well as accommodation possibilities and study fees. It is intended to widen the CHE ExcellenceRanking to other disciplines in the future.