The School of Public Policy climbs in rankings for top policy schools globally

IDEAS/Repec released its global top 25% of policy schools as of 2022 and The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary ranked #31, climbing two spots from #33 in 2020. The School of Public Policy is the only policy school in Canada to have made the list, and appears with policy schools from Harvard, Cornell, Columbia and Stanford to name a few.

IDEAS/Repec (Research Papers in Economics) is the largest bibliographic database dedicated to economics. Based on RePEc, it indexes over 3,300,000 items of research, including over 3,100,000 that can be downloaded in full text. The rankings are based on analysis from data gathered with the RePEc project.

The analysis covers journal articles, books, book chapters, working papers and software components that are indexed in RePEc. So far, over 2,000 archives from 102 countries have contributed about 3 million research pieces from 3,500 journals and 5,000 working paper series.

Dr. Myles Leslie, PhD, research director at the School, responded to the distinction, saying, “For me, the rise in ranking illustrates how the School is much bigger than its parts, its transitions, and any one paper we publish, class we deliver, or event we host. I’m humbled by the dedicated colleagues, students, and community members who’ve made — and continue to make — the SPP larger than themselves and better for their engagement. It is their efforts that have given us this global standing.”

Dr. Siu Ming Kwok, PhD, academic director, added, “This is an exceptional accomplishment to achieve this global ranking for a policy school with only 14 years of history. More remarkably, we are the only Canadian policy school with this achievement.”

The School of Public Policy was founded with a vision to drive policy discourse with relevant research, outreach and teaching. Its faculty is composed of scholars with exceptional academic credentials and experienced practitioners in business, government and the non-profit sector.

The School’s research is renowned for its independence, credibility and fact-based analysis. The School’s influence is reflected by its wide dissemination among policy-makers, business leaders and the media; it is Canada’s most cited policy school, by both traditional media and academic publications. Since its inception over a decade ago, the school has produced over 600 peer reviewed publications with over an astounding 70 publications in 2021.

Peter MacKinnon, interim director, concluded, “This School is a success story, and we must continue to build on that success.”