The National Research Council’s Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs 2010
The National Research Council (NRC) has released its 2010 assessment of Research Doctorate Programs in the United States. This study is intended to provide a more comprehensive assessment of doctoral program quality than can be found in other popular ranking systems available today.
Unlike other ranking systems, the NRC takes into account many factors contributing to the quality of doctoral programs, including the scholarly productivity of the faculty, the experience of students in the doctoral program, and the diversity of faculty and students. Over 200 universities participated in the 2005-06 data collection, which covered 62 fields of study and 14 emerging fields of study.
The University of Michigan collected and contributed data for 69 Ph.D. programs as part of this effort to assess and improve doctoral education. (Our remaining 35 Ph.D. programs were not covered by the NRC study.)
The full report and the methodology report are available at the National Academies Press website.
The Rackham Graduate School welcomes the NRC assessment as one of several important sources of information we use on a regular basis to improve the quality of our Ph.D. programs at the University of Michigan.
Information on the NRC Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs
What is the purpose of the study? Every ten years or so, the National Research Council (NRC) conducts a study of national importance regarding the quality and characteristics of doctoral…
The NRC Taxonomy of Fields and Subfields
69 U-M Ph.D. programs were assigned to 62 NRC Primary Fields. Doctoral programs in the School of Information and in Bioinformatics, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, Urban and Regional Planning,…
How to Understand the Ratings
How to Understand the Ratings Rankings will be reported in ranges and will show the 5th and 95th percentile values. Each program will receive a range of rankings for 5…