National Research Council
The National Research Council (NRC) periodically assesses U.S. research-doctorate programs. The most recent rankings were released on Tuesday, September 28, 2010. NRC uses two rankings: Survey-Based and Regression-Based. “The [Survey-Based] rankings reflect the degree to which a program is strong in the characteristics that faculty in the field rated as most important to the overall quality of a program…. The [Regression-Based] rankings are based on an indirect approach to determining what faculty value in a program.”
Return on Investment
Using NRC Data with Faculty Members, Departments, and Visiting Committees
In the years leading up to the release of the NRC’s 2010 Research Doctorate study, institutions invested significant resources—time and money—in preparing and validating data. While much of the initial buzz surrounding the rankings‐related results of the study has passed, the rankings and the data behind them remain as a resource for faculty members, department heads, and visiting committees. In this paper we describe several ways in which MIT has deployed information from the NRC data set as a resource for benchmarking and decision making.
Return on Investment was presented by the IR Office at the 2011 Convocation of the Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs.
MIT Programs ranked in the 2010 NRC Assessment:
| Program | Survey-based Ranking (High) | Survey-based Ranking (Low) | Regression-based Ranking (High) | Regression-based Ranking (Low) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Political Science (105 ranked programs) | 13 | 36 | 11 | 30 |
| Geology and Geochemistry and Geophysics (140 ranked programs) | 10 | 35 | 7 | 25 |
| Linguistics (52 ranked programs) | 9 | 21 | 1 | 17 |
| Cognitive Science (236 ranked programs) | 9 | 46 | 15 | 56 |
| Aeronautics & Astrophysics (31 ranked programs) | 7 | 16 | 2 | 5 |
| Civil and Environmental Engineering (130 ranked programs) | 7 | 39 | 2 | 7 |
| Astrophysics, Astronomy, and Planetary Science (33 ranked programs) | 6 | 17 | 1 | 8 |
| Chemistry (178 ranked programs) | 6 | 16 | 3 | 13 |
| Electrical and Computer Engineering (136 ranked programs) | 6 | 18 | 7 | 15 |
| Mechanical Engineering (127 ranked programs) | 5 | 14 | 1 | 2 |
| Mathematics (127 ranked programs) | 4 | 11 | 5 | 11 |
| Materials Science and Engineering (83 ranked programs) | 3 | 12 | 2 | 3 |
| Chemical Engineering (106 ranked programs) | 3 | 8 | 1 | 4 |
| Biological Engineering, Health Science and Technology (74 ranked programs) | 3 | 17 | 1 | 5 |
| Atmospheres, Oceans & Climate including MIT/WHOI Oceanography (50 programs ranked) | 3 | 17 | 3 | 6 |
| Philosophy (90 ranked programs) | 3 | 11 | 3 | 18 |
| Physics (161 ranked programs) | 2 | 12 | 1 | 4 |
| Economics (117 ranked programs) | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Computer Science (126 ranked programs) | 2 | 12 | 2 | 5 |
| Applied Mathematics (33 ranked programs) | 2 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| History, Theory and Criticism (58 ranked programs) | 2 | 7 | 5 | 26 |
| Biology/Cell and Developmental (122 ranked programs) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Biology/Genetics and Genomics (65 ranked programs) | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Neuroscience (94 ranked programs) | 1 | 7 | 2 | 6 |
| Biology/Biochemistry/ and Biophysics (159 ranked programs | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 |
| Applied Biosciences (116 ranked programs) | 1 | 21 | 1 | 9 |
| Operations Research (72 ranked programs) | 1 | 2 | 7 | 34 |