Rating the World's Architecture Schools Research Performance 2009: Our Methodology
The Good Oil
Every two years we survey and rate the research performance of the architecture schools in the English-speaking nations. 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 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.
Contents
Summary of the 2009 report
Features of the 2009 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). 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.
New for 2009 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 |
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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. |
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