New Citation Ranking of UK Universities (Law)

A few days ago I posted a ranking that showed how often, in absolute terms, UK universities are mentioned in US law reviews (available here). The following presents an improved version of this ranking since it shows the hits per research-active member of staff.

1. London School of Economics (25.45)
2. University of Cambridge (15.85)
3. University of Oxford (12.73)
4. University College London (12.09)
5. University of Sussex (7.94)
6. University of Edinburgh (7.82)
7. University of Birmingham (7.39)
8. School of Oriental and African Studies (6.72)
9. University of Newcastle (6.62)
10. University of Essex (6.4)
11. University of Nottingham (5.93)
12. University of Reading (5.91)
13. Cardiff University (University of Wales, Cardiff) (5.68)
14. University of Strathclyde (5.38)
15. Birkbeck College (5.35)
16. Kings College London (5.08)
17. University of East Anglia (4.94)
18. University of Warwick (4.81)
19. University of Durham (4.72)
20. University of Sheffield (4.63)
21. University of Kent (4.56)
22. University of Dundee (4.52)
23. University of Glasgow (4.33)
24. University of Manchester (4.30)
25. Oxford Brookes University (4.25)
26. University of Leeds (4.20)
27. University of Leicester (4.15)
28. University of Bristol (4.07)
29. Queen Mary University (3.95)
30. University of Hull (3.87)
31. University of Exeter (3.7)
32. Keele University (3.67)
33. University of Liverpool (3.60
34. Aberystwyth University (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) (3.59)
35. University of Aberdeen (3.26)
36. University of Ulster (3.24)
37. Queen's University of Belfast (2.95)
38. Lancaster University (2.78)
39. University of Southampton (2.53)
40. Brunel University (2.30)
41. University of Westminster (2.11)
42. Swansea University (University of Wales, Swansea) (1.85)
Unranked: University of Stirling, City University (London), University of Abertay Dundee, University of Wolverhampton, University of the West of England, De Montfort University, University of Salford, Nottingham Trent University, Middlesex University, University of Central Lancashire, London Metropolitan University, University of Glamorgan, University of Lincoln, Glasgow Caledonian University, Kingston University, Robert Gordon University, University of Greenwich, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Sunderland, Napier University, Bournemouth University, Coventry University, University of the West of Scotland, Southampton Solent University

A few more words on my method: first, I counted the number of times these universities are mentioned in US law reviews between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2009, using Westlaw’s JLR database. I have only searched for the full names of the universities (see above), so not, for instance abbreviations or other modifications (e.g., LSE instead of London School of Economics, or Oxford University instead of University of Oxford). For the Welsh universities I have considered that their names have changed during the observation period. Second, I tried to take into account the differences in the number of academics per law school/faculty. The results of the Research Assessment Exercise 2008 (available here) report the number of “FTE Category A staff submitted”. A problem is that universities were not required to submit all members of academic staff: some universities submitted almost everyone whereas others omitted members of staff who do not produce at least medium-quality research. To control for this point, I have omitted the unclassified and 1* performers from the number of academics per law school/faculty. In substance this means that the ranking only considers research-active members of staff, omitting law teachers with no or minor research ambitions. A side effect was for 25 out of 67 universities the number of academics dropped below 10. These universities (mainly former politechnics) have been left unranked.

Then, how can this ranking be interpreted? Law review articles may mention the names of universities for various motives but the main reason is presumably that authors are either academics from these universities or hold degrees from them. Thus, the ranking can be seen as showing how influential ideas deriving from these universities are. A necessary caveat is that I only considered US law reviews which may be regarded as an imperfect proxy. However, I would suggest that, at least, this provides a more accurate picture than alternative “countings”, such as Webometrics (available here).