UCSC Ranked Third in the World for Research Cites/Donations up/Google Exec to Speak

Scholars at the University of California at Santa Cruz placed third worldwide in the number of times their research has been cited by other academics, according to an analysis by Thomson Reuters done for the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-2012.

UCSC was tied in its ranking with the California Institute of Technology, UC Santa Barbara and Rice University. Stanford and Harvard were just below them.

In overall rankings, UCSC placed 110, while the California Institute of Technology was first and Harvard and Stanford tied for second.

Rankings by research citations for the Top 20 schools:

UCSC DONATIONS UP 10 PERCENT

In other campus news, private donations to the school increased by 10 percent this year, according to the UCSC news site which reported: 

• Contributions from parents of current and former students increased from $718,000 to $998,000.
• Contributions from faculty increased from $575,000 to $1.76 million.
• The total number of alumni gifts increased from 3,299 to 3,574.
• Gifts included $940,404 in realized bequests.
• Contributions for student support rose from $1.6 million to $2.8 million, an increase of almost 300 people who designated their gifts for student support.
• Total unrestricted giving rose from just over $1 million last year to $1.2 million this year.

GOOGLER TO SHOW SOME ADVANCED GOOGLING

Hal Varian, chief economist at Google will show UCSC students how search queries from Google can help improve forecasts of the current level of activity for many different economic events, including automobile sales, home sales, retail sales, and travel behavior.

Varian's lecture, “Predicting the Present with Google Trends,” will take place October 20, 2011 at 2 p.m. in the Alumni Room of University Center on the UCSC campus. It is free and open to the public.

Varian cowrote the book Information Rules, which Fortune Magazine called one of the top 75 books written about business.