The University of Queensland’s (UQ) School of Economics has been ranked as the top economics research institution in Australia and 47th in the world.
The ranking of 10,700 institutions worldwide by Research Papers in Economics (ReREc) compares institutions and departments based on their economic research output and the impact of their publications.
This is the first time that RePEc, a collaborative effort of academics in 71 countries that collects scholarly data including publications and citations, has ranked UQ Economics as the top department of economics in Australia.
Head of the UQ School of Economics, Professor Flavio Menezes, said this is the latest accolade in a series of recent successes achieved by staff at the School.
“The latest RePEc ranking reflects the School’s collective effort in pursuing the goal of becoming the best economics department that Australia has ever had and one of the top departments in the world,” Professor Menezes said.
“It also provides evidence that our strategy of attracting and retaining top talent at UQ is having a major impact on research produced at UQ Economics."
The UQ School of Economics was awarded over $1 million dollars in the 2011 ARC Discovery Round and received the only Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in Economics.
“In 2011, our academic staff were also recognised at the UQ Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards with a Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s (ALTC) recognition with Citations for decades of inspiring students to learn and for sustained commitment, excellence and leadership in teaching economics,” Professor Menezes said.
Professor Flavio Menezes said UQ Economics also claims a disproportionate share of distinguished research fellowships.
“We have one Federation Fellow, two ARC Professorial Fellows, one Future Fellow and one ARC Post-doctoral Fellow and the School has been ranked above world standard in the 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia initiative,” he said.
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RePEc background
The RePEc database offers information on over 865,000 items, most of which are available online. Among these are journal articles, working papers, and book and chapter listings. Institutions and publishers around the world participating in RePEc include Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, the Federal Reserve System, World Bank, The Centre for Economic Policy Research, The International Monetary Fund, and The National Bureau of Economic Research.
All RePEc materials, including complete details about the rankings, are available at http://repec.org.
School of Economics background
Economics has been part of The University of Queensland’s curriculum since its foundation in 1911. The School of Economics is home to an innovative and eminent group of economists; its distinguished history includes Colin G. Clark and Nobel Memorial Prize recipient John C. Harsanyi (one of the founders of modern Game Theory). UQ Economics also has a strong reputation for producing outstanding students.
For more information about the School of Economics, please visit www.uq.edu.au/economics
