It’s time to update the only university league tables that anyone really cares about – our UK University Twitter Rankings. As always, we’re looking only at the primary Twitter accounts of the leading UK universities in the Russell and 1994 Groups (see our original post for the limitations of this approach, and why this is really a bit of informative fun).
Not much change at the very top and very bottom, with Oxford University and The University of York holding on to their top spots, whilst the Institute of Education, Newcastle University and The University of Manchester still languish at the bottom. Maybe the latter could do with a bit of Professor Brian Cox’s magic space dust…
The biggest climber in the last fortnight has been Lancaster University (up a whopping 10 places). Our prediction last time that The University of East Anglia would find themselves in the top 10 proved to be true; they climbed 6 places, as did University of Leicester.
The biggest faller has been Cardiff University, dropping a full third of the table in two weeks. What did they do wrong?
University | Account | PeerIndex | Klout | Combined | ||
1 | = | Oxford University | @uniofoxford | 57 | 56 | 113 |
2 | = | University of York | @uniofyork | 61 | 49 | 110 |
3 | +1 | Cambridge University | @cambridge_uni | 50 | 56 | 106 |
-1 | University College London | @uclnews | 52 | 54 | 106 | |
5 | +6 | University of East Anglia | @uniofeastanglia | 43 | 59 | 102 |
+5 | Edinburgh University | @uniofedinburgh | 46 | 56 | 102 | |
7 | +1 | Warwick University | @warwickuni | 46 | 54 | 100 |
-2 | University of Leeds | @universityleeds | 47 | 53 | 100 | |
9 | -1 | Glasgow University | @glasgowuni | 43 | 56 | 99 |
-3 | University of Bath | @uniofbath | 46 | 53 | 99 | |
11 | +1 | University of Exeter | @uniofexeter | 45 | 52 | 97 |
-5 | Sheffield University | @sheffielduni | 42 | 55 | 97 | |
13 | +1 | Nottingham University | @uniofnottingham | 38 | 56 | 94 |
+1 | University of Birmingham | @unibirmingham | 37 | 57 | 94 | |
15 | +10 | Lancaster University | @lancasteruni | 42 | 50 | 92 |
16 | -2 | Imperial College London | @imperialcollege | 39 | 52 | 91 |
17 | +1 | Kings College London | @kingscollegelon | 38 | 52 | 90 |
+1 | University of Sussex | @sussexuni | 35 | 55 | 90 | |
19 | +3 | University of St Andrews | @univofstandrews | 41 | 47 | 88 |
+3 | Goldsmiths College London | @goldsmithsuol | 39 | 49 | 88 | |
-5 | Queen Mary University London | @qmul | 36 | 52 | 88 | |
22 | -1 | University of Essex | @uni_of_essex | 36 | 50 | 86 |
23 | +6 | University of Leicester | @uniofleicsnews | 37 | 48 | 85 |
24 | = | University of Southampton | @southamptonnews | 40 | 44 | 84 |
-6 | University of Liverpool | @livuni | 31 | 53 | 84 | |
26 | -13 | Cardiff University | @cardiffuni | 30 | 51 | 81 |
27 | -1 | London School of Economics | @lsenews | 29 | 50 | 79 |
28 | = | School of Oriental and African Studies London | @soasnewsroom | 33 | 45 | 78 |
-1 | University of Surrey | @uniofsurrey | 28 | 50 | 78 | |
30 | +5 | Royal Holloway London | @royalholloway | 30 | 44 | 74 |
31 | -2 | Bristol University | @bristoluni | 20 | 51 | 71 |
32 | +3 | Durham University | @durham_uni | 20 | 48 | 68 |
33 | -1 | Birkbeck College London | @birkbecknews | 14 | 45 | 59 |
-1 | Queen’s University Belfast | @queensubelfast | 13 | 46 | 59 | |
35 | -3 | University of Reading | @unirdg_news | 11 | 47 | 58 |
36 | -5 | Loughborough University | @lborouniversity | 12 | 45 | 57 |
37 | = | Institute of Education London | @ioe_london | 9 | 42 | 51 |
38 | = | University of Manchester | @admissionsuom | 7 | 37 | 44 |
39 | = | Newcastle University | @newunipress | 7 | 36 | 43 |
As always, if you represent any of these institutions and have any questions or comments about the rankings, please leave a comment or drop me an email at [email protected].
Lucy Temple Jan 26 , 2012 at 2:29 pm /
Interesting, but why weren’t new universities looked at? You might even find they are using Twitter more effectively 😉
Niall Cook Jan 26 , 2012 at 6:07 pm /
Hi Lucy. Nothing sinister going on. We just looked at the members of the 1994 and Russell Groups. If there’s a manageable list of the “new” universities we’d happily consider looking at those too. I’m sure we would see some differences.