Rating the World's Architecture Schools Research Performance 2009/13: Our Methodology

Final Edition

Note Along with the rest of this site, this page ceased updating in 2014. No further results will be published.

The Good Oil

To put it simply: we assign each academic {professor} a research score, derived from their reference counts in the two great architecture libraries in the English-speaking world. A school's median research score, is simply the median score of the academics at that school.

Previous surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2007. This page discusses the 2009/13 report, whose survey data was collected from November 2008 to January 2009. For our earlier 2005 and 2007 reports, see here.

Read part one of this report to find the actual ratings.

Summary of the 2009/13 report

Features of the report:

• Every school from nine key English-speaking nations examined: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Eire, Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand
• Over 160 architecture schools rated: every single accredited school for which data was available
• Over 3,000 architectural academics {professors} assessed

Who got counted

In each of our surveyed countries, we counted every accredited architecture school producing a qualification allowing the graduate to practise architecture in that country. We ignored candidate and probationary schools.

We counted the smallest architecture unit in the school. If a school contained departments of architecture, urban design, and structures, we only counted the people in the architecture department. In those schools that mashed all these together in a single academic unit, we counted everyone unless their published information identified them as not teaching an architecture course.

We examined the websites of these schools to obtain a list of every senior academic (naturally, we assumed the lists on these sites were accurate; and we assumed the spelling was accurate). To be counted as eligible, a person had to be:

• identified as specifically teaching in an architecture course (rather than – say – urban planning, interior design, surveying, landscape, or real estate)
• full-time
• assistant professor or above (North America), or lecturer or above (Commonwealth)

We did not count tutors, professors emeritus (emerita!), adjuncts, associate lecturers, affiliates, visitors, fellows, and that guy in the basement who knows all about Photoshop, and other obvious blow-ins. Disregarding these people does not disadvantage a school: on the contrary it acts in their school's favour, since it reduces staff members per count.

We also discarded about 20 people who seem to be living double lives, employed full-time at two different universities.

We did count clinical professors and that wonderful American camel-designed-by-a-committee, the professor of the practice.

What we counted to arrive at our scores

We went to the two greatest architecture libraries in the English-speaking world: the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) British Architectural Library in the UK; and the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in the USA. If you are going to find architectural research anywhere, you will find it here.

For each academic, we counted his or her references in the two vast library databases each institution maintains. This gave a research score for each person.

We used these scores to calculate the median research score for each school. That is, the typical research score of an academic at that school.

We also calculated the percentage of staff at each school who are in the top quartile (top 25%) of global performers. By definition, one-quarter of a typical school's staff will fall into this category. You may want to use both measures to assess schools.

Much more information can be found in the 2005 report.

Who did not get counted

Nations not included

We had to exclude India from our survey, since we could not find decent web data for any school.

Schools not included

The table below shows the schools we had to ignore completely for the reasons cited.

Nation	University	Reason
Aus	Charles Darwin University	Does not offer professional degree
Aus	Curtin University of Technology	No academics list
Can	Ryerson University	Does not offer professional degree
Can	Université de Montréal	Not primarily Anglophone
Can	Universite Laval	Not primarily Anglophone
NZ	Otago Polytechnic	Does not offer professional degree
RSA	Tshwane University of Technology	Could not identify countable academics
RSA	Durban University of Technology	Does not offer professional degree
UK	Birmingham City University	Could not identify countable academics
UK	University of Brighton	Could not identify countable academics
UK	De Montfort University	Could not identify countable academics
UK	University of East London	Could not identify countable academics
UK	Royal College of Art	Could not identify countable academics
UK	Edinburgh College of Art	Institutional change
UK	University of Edinburgh	Institutional change
UK	University of Huddersfield	No academics list
UK	University of Dundee	No academics list
UK	University of Plymouth	No academics list
UK	Liverpool John Moores University	No academics list
UK	Architectural Association	Outside university system
USA	Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico	Could not identify countable academics
USA	Parsons The New School for Design	Could not identify countable academics
USA	Washington University in St Louis	Could not identify countable academics
USA	University of Texas at San Antonio	Could not identify countable academics
USA	University of North Carolina - Charlotte	Could not identify countable academics
USA	University of Hartford	Does not offer professional degree
USA	Miami University	No site or unreachable
USA	University of South Florida	No academics list
USA	Universidad de Peurto Rico	Not primarily Anglophone
USA	Boston Architectural College	Outside university system
USA	Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture	Outside university system
USA	Southern California Institute of Architecture	Outside university system
USA	Academy of Art University	Outside university system
Not accredited: Course is not accredited by the national authority as a valid terminal or professional degree. Candidate for accreditation: Course has been accepted by the national authority as a candidate for accreditation. No academics list: School was too dim to list on its website those who worked there. Could not identify countable academics: Staff {faculty} listed, but we were unable to identify those satisfying our eligibility criteria: janitor or professor? The school's site did not tell us. Not primarily Anglophone: Schools whose staff published primarily in languages unlikely to be counted by our library databases. Outside university system: Schools that do not claim to conduct university-quality research as a major mission.