Research and teaching in Economics at USI ranks high in Europe

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Institutional Communication Service

12 November 2019

In the 2018 Financial Times Global Masters Rankings, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) was listed among the best universities in the world for its Master's in Finance programme. This year, Forschungsmonitoring shows that the USI Faculty of Economics scores very high in the rankings that measure the impact of research in Economics in the European continent, especially when referring to the most prestigious academic journals in the field (class A+). This postive result goes to underscore that, in addition to senior faculty, there is a new generation of very talented young professors at USI, such as Professors Laurent Frésard and Raphaël Parchet. The former, in particular, was awarded this year with the Credit Suisse Award for best Teaching, whereas both rank among the first 30 young economists under 40 in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. These accomplishments are the result of the investments made by USI to support the development and growth of the Faculty of Economics, which is thus confirmed at the highest level in research and teaching in Europe.

The Forschungsmonitoring output shows the rankings of all economists in the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and of researchers working abroad who are born in these countries. It is based on SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) values that measure the academic influence of a scientific paper by the number of citations it receives and the prestige of the journals in which it is cited.

There are two rankings - one in Economics (Volkswirtschaftslehre, VWL) and one in Business Administration (BWL) - and different rankings are provided depending on the weight given to the journals.

 

Taking into account the publications between 2015 and 2019, different rankings in Economics (VWL) are formulated:

The Lifetime Ranking is also determined, which includes publications from the entire academic career, and the University ranking, which adds up all the publications between 2015 and 2019 of the economists currently employed in the various Swiss, Austrian and German universities. 

 

USI in the Author ranking

The most recent ranking is based on publications between 2015 and 2019 and the results are published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, which specialises in economics and finance. Several USI professors appear among the 262 researchers of the ranking, when the basis of publications in the best journals classified A + are taken into account, namely:

Top 5%

 

USI in the Young Economist Ranking

In the ranking of young economists under 40 years of age, Prof. Laurent Frésard came in 20th and Prof. Raphael Parchet 28th among the best young economists under 40 years of age in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. It should be noted that Prof. Laurent Frésard earns an outstanding 2nd place when the ranking is generated on the basis of A and A+ journals.  

 

USI in the Lifetime Ranking

Another ranking based on the same criteria, but which considers all the publications of a researcher's career and not only the last few years, sees the presence of seven USI professors out of a total of 348, namely:

Top 5%

Top 10%

USI in the University Ranking

In this ranking (which adds up all the publications between 2015 and 2019 of economists currently employed in universities, not just the A+s) Università della Svizzera italiana ranks eleventh among all universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. According to Professor Eric Nowak, Director of the USI Institute of Finance (IFIN), which counts nine professors in the rankings according to Forschungsmonitoring, "these results highlight the high quality of research in economics and finance carried out at USI. According to these rankings, we are not only ahead of our Swiss colleagues from much larger or older universities such as Basel, Bern, and Geneva, but we are also at the same level as St. Gallen, achieving these results with half of the authors (USI counts 21, compared to 46 for the HSG). One should not forget that the level of our research also translates into excellent teaching at the highest international level, which is also reflected in the USI Master of Science in Economics in Finance, which ranks 38th in the world and 3rd in Switzerland according to the Financial Times". It is worth noting that if the University ranking were to be based solely on A+ journals, USI would come in 6th in the ranking.

 

USI in the Business Administrstion Ranking (BWL)

Forschungsmonitoring rankings of academics in Business Administration ("BWL") in the German-speaking countries were published by the German weekly publication Wirtschaftswoche in 2018. The career ranking, which is based on A+ publications, includes six USI professors out of a total of 253 on the list:

Top 5%

 Top 10%:

 

Note on the method: rankings are subject to a certain variability depending on the weight assigned to the journals. USI has opted for a selective criterion, considering only the class A+ publications of its authors. On November 19, 2019, at the website Forschungsmonitoring, professors Francesco Franzoni and Alberto Plazzi were not included in the positions listed above because of a number of publications that were not considered. Upon formal request by USI, Forschungsmonitoring has included these publications in their database and has recalculated the positions.

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