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World University Rankings 2023

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.

The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

This year’s ranking analysed over 121 million citations across more than 15.5 million research publications and included survey responses from 40,000 scholars globally. Overall, we collected over 680,000 datapoints from more than 2,500 institutions that submitted data.

Trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts, this year’s league table reveals how the global higher education landscape is shifting.

View the World University Rankings 2023 methodology

The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remains in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumps from joint fifth last year to joint third.

The highest new entry is Italy’s Humanitas University, ranked in the 201-250 bracket.

The US is the most-represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58).

Mainland China now has the fourth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (11, compared with 10 last year), having overtaken Australia, which has dropped to fifth (joint with the Netherlands).

Five countries enter the ranking for the first time – all of them in Africa (Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Mauritius).

Harvard tops the teaching pillar, while Oxford leads the research pillar. Atop the international pillar is the Macau University of Science and Technology.

Overall, 1,799 universities are ranked. A further 546 universities are listed with “reporter” status, meaning that they provided data but did not meet our eligibility criteria to receive a rank, and agreed to be displayed as a reporter in the final table.

Read our analysis of the World University Rankings 2023 results

Download a copy of the World University Rankings 2023 digital report

To raise your university’s global profile with Times Higher Education , contact [email protected]

To unlock the data behind THE ’s rankings and access a range of analytical and benchmarking tools, click here

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Academic Insights

• World University Rankings 2023: results announced
• World University Rankings 2023: African sector improving rapidly
• World University Rankings 2023: US stagnating, Oceania rising, and a weak point for China
• World University Rankings 2023: the opportunities and threats ahead
• World University Rankings 2023: top marks for Australian sector
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• World University Rankings 2023: trends in research
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• NATURE INDEX
• 29 April 2020

Leading research institutions 2020

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A researcher at the University of California, San Diego, prepares to launch a 3D-printed rocket. Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing has topped the Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables list as the most prolific producer of research published in the 82 selected journals tracked by the Index (see Graphic).

CAS’s Share of 1805.22 in 2019 was almost twice that of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which came in second. Research institutions from China, the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom feature among the ten most prolific institutions in the Index. See the 2020 Annual Tables Top 100 research institutions for 2019 .

(Share, formerly referred to in the Nature Index as Fractional Count (FC), is a measure of an entity’s contribution to articles in the 82 journals tracked by the index, calculated according to the proportion of its affiliated authors on an article relative to all authors on the article. When comparing data over time, Share values are adjusted to 2019 levels to account for the small annual variation in the total number of articles in the Nature Index journals. The Nature Index is one indicator of institutional research performance. See Editor’s note below.)

Source: Nature Index

Here is a selection of institutions from the top 25 of the Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables .

University of Science and Technology of China

Share: 455.82; Count: 1,231; Change in adjusted Share (2018–19): +25.6%; Place: 8th

Established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1958 in Beijing (then known as Peking), the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) moved to its current location in Hefei, the capital of the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, in 1970.

Today, it employs about 16,000 students, including 1,900 PhD students, as well as 1,812 faculty members, 547 of which are professors.

Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables

The institution’s strongest subjects in the Nature Index are chemistry and physical sciences. USTC is a global collaborator, counting the Max Planck Society in Munich, Germany, the University of Oxford, UK, and Stanford University in California among its close partners.

In 2019, USTC researchers were part of an international team that discovered a stellar black hole with a mass 70 times greater than that of the Sun. The findings, published in Nature , were mentioned in more than 300 tweets and nearly 200 news stories, according to Altmetric.

University of Michigan, United States

Share: 343.45; Count: 939; Change in adjusted Share (2018–19): − 3.3%; Place: 19th

Placed first among public universities in the United States for research volume, according to the US National Science Foundation, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor encompasses 260,000 square metres of lab space, which is accessed by students and staff in 227 centres and institutes across its campus.

With US$1.62 billion in research expenditure and more than 500 new invention reports in the fiscal year 2019, the University of Michigan is focused on innovative areas in research, including data science, precision health and bioscience. Its Global CO 2 Initiative, launched in 2018, aims to identify and pursue commercially sustainable approaches that reduce atmospheric CO 2 levels by 4 gigatons per year.

A 2019 study published in Science on honesty and selfishness across cultures, led by behavioural economist Alain Cohn, was covered by almost 300 online news outlets and reached more than 22 million people on Twitter, according to Altmetric. The study, which tested people’s willingness to return a dummy lost wallet, revealed a ‘high level’ of civic honesty.

University of California, San Diego, United States

Share: 340.85; Count: 1,048; Change in adjusted Share (2018–19): − 1.2%; Place: 20th

With US$1.35 billion in annual research funding, the University of California, San Diego, is a force in natural-sciences research, particularly in oceanography and the life sciences.

Its health-sciences group, which includes the School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, brought in US$761 million in research funding in the fiscal year 2019, and Scripps Oceanography, one of the world’s oldest and largest centres for research in ocean and Earth science, won $180 million in funding.

The university also has a focus on innovation, with more than 2,500 active inventions, 1,870 US and foreign patents, and 31 start-ups launched in 2018 by faculty members, students and staff. One such start-up was CavoGene LifeSciences, which aims to develop gene therapies to treat neurodegenerative disease.

Zhejiang University, China

Share: 329.82; Count: 815; Change in adjusted Share (2018–19): +10.5%; Place: 23rd

Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, is part of the Chinese government’s Double First Class Plan, which aims to develop several world-class universities by 2050. It employs 3,741 full-time faculty members and partners with nearly 200 institutions around the world.

Zhejiang’s total research funding reached 4.56 billion yuan (US$644 million) in 2018, with 926 projects supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Fund and 1,838 Chinese invention patents issued. The university is home to materials scientist Dawei Di, who was listed as a top innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review in 2019 for his work on organic light-emitting diodes and perovskite light-emitting diodes.

In 2019, Zheijiang researchers published a Science paper with an international team that proposed a method for boosting plant growth while reducing water use, which could contribute to more sustainable agriculture practices.

Northwestern University, United States

Share: 317.12; Count: 762; Change in adjusted Share (2018–19): − 7.6%; Place: 25th

Founded as a private research university in 1851, Northwestern University, based in Evanston, Illinois, now also has campuses in Chicago and Doha, Qatar, and employs 3,300 full-time research staff. It has an annual budget of US$2 billion and attracts more than US$700 million for sponsored research each year.

The fastest-rising institution in the United States in high-quality life-sciences research output, Northwestern University was also 14th in the world in chemistry in the Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables .

Its star researchers include mathematician Emmy Murphy, one of six recipients of the 2020 New Horizons Prize for her work in the field of topology — the study of geometric properties and relationships — and physicist John Joseph Carrasco and neuroscientist Andrew Miri, who in February were awarded prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01230-x

This article is part of Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables , an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.

Editor’s note: The Nature Index is one indicator of institutional research performance. The metrics of Count and Share used to order Nature Index listings are based on an institution’s or country’s publication output in 82 natural-science journals, selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields. Nature Index recognizes that many other factors must be taken into account when considering research quality and institutional performance; Nature Index metrics alone should not be used to assess institutions or individuals. Nature Index data and methods are transparent and available under a creative commons licence at natureindex.com .

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We are America’s first research university , founded on the principle that by pursuing big ideas and sharing what we learn, we can make the world a better place. For more than 140 years, our faculty and students have worked side by side in pursuit of discoveries that improve lives.

What kinds of discoveries? We made water purification possible, launched the field of genetic engineering, and authenticated the Dead Sea Scrolls. We invented saccharine, CPR, and the supersonic ramjet engine. Our efforts have resulted in child safety restraint laws; the creation of Dramamine, Mercurochrome, and rubber surgical gloves; and the development of a revolutionary surgical procedure to correct heart defects in infants.

The research opportunities here are just endless. That’s really what I was looking for, a place where it’s very easy to do research .

Researchers at our nine academic divisions and at the university’s Applied Physics Laboratory have made us the nation’s leader in federal research and development funding each year since 1979. Those same researchers mentor our inquisitive students—about two-thirds of our undergrads engage in some form of research during their time here.

Research isn’t just something we do—it’s who we are. Every day, our faculty and students work side by side in a tireless pursuit of discovery, continuing our founding mission to bring knowledge to the world.

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February 9, 2021

A new type of university is emerging to meet the challenges of today

by Arizona State University

The world is changing rapidly and in order to serve the human population dealing with those changes, American universities need to change, too. In fact, their role is to model the resiliency that all institutions need to embrace, according to Arizona State University President Michal M. Crow.

While many leading universities are poised to advance society and help respond to the challenges of disruptive change through their traditional role in education and discovery, many face a number of barriers that make them less prepared to respond to the rapidly changing conditions and the demands they create.

What is emerging is a new type of university, one that steps beyond the American research university model and is nimble and responsive, takes responsibility for what happens outside its walls and can scale up to meet the demands and challenges of modern society. ASU President Michael Crow says they are part of the "fifth wave" of universities.

Crow's comments came today (Feb. 9, 2021) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Crow's presentation, "A new evolution of research universities," touched on the history of universities, outlined the challenges they face today and explained how new universities of the fifth wave will rise to meet those challenges.

In his recent book "The Fifth Wave," (written with ASU senior research fellow William Dabars) Crow describes the emerging standard of research universities that will better align them with the needs of society in many ways, including contributing solutions to global problems.

The fifth wave is a manifestation of a new wave of American universities, a model embraced and advanced by Arizona State University. These universities are egalitarian, accessible, based in community impact and measured against social outcomes. They are scalable, they are technologically sophisticated and advanced. They educate not hundreds of students, but thousands and tens of thousands of students, Crow said.

Many of today's leading universities are American research universities, which emerged nearly 140 years ago—the fourth wave of university evolution. These universities have a long history of contributions to society, such as breakthrough advances in the fundamental understanding of nature, advancing applied science on a multitude of fronts, and advancing human culture , human's sense of place and sense of self.

"This has all has been fantastic, but inadequate," Crow said. "Because what happened during the evolution of the research university is that it has become more exclusive, more limited to smaller and smaller fragments of society, and more and more isolated from larger aspects of society itself."

The COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point on the limits of the traditional research university.

"America's universities were about as unprepared for this pandemic as one could possibly imagine," Crow said. "Suddenly, we didn't know how to communicate science well enough, we didn't know how to engage in complexity well enough, we didn't know how to cut and cross between disciplines well enough, and we didn't know how to build confidence around knowledge well enough."

The pandemic shows that what is needed is an additional type of university, not a replacement for the ones that exist and are exemplars today, but an additional type of higher educational institutions. "The fifth wave will allow us to do it," Crow said.

The "new" universities are responsive to the rapidly evolving needs of society. Their hallmarks include being inclusive in their educational philosophy and understanding that all people are lifelong learners; contributing to the challenges humans face today on a grand scale, like climate change and the current pandemic; taking stock in their immediate surroundings and being responsible for the success of that setting and of society as a whole.

"We are faced with an evolutionary moment. The role of the university, its role in discovery, its role in creativity, its role in innovation has never been more important and also its limits have never been clearer," Crow said. "The significant role going forward is figuring out the role of existing research universities and the role of emerging universities, including those that need to operate at a new scale, a new speed and a new egalitarianism."

Crow warned, though, that certain barriers exist that can thwart the evolution of fifth wave universities.

"We form athletic leagues, but we don't form climate change research leagues," he said. "The current model is to have faculty largely work in small centers and small groups, each attempting to advance their fields in a highly competitive way to beat out their competitors. This leaves little room for working on the scaled problems, like how do we manage our relationship with the planet, how will we facilitate cultural and economic competitiveness and do so to the benefit of a highly diverse population. How do we map between Western science, Western culture, Western technology and Indigenous science, Indigenous culture and Indigenous technology?"

Crow explained that in shaping the New American University model is the idea that the university will take responsibility for actions outside of the institution itself.

"If K-12 is underperforming, the institution is partly responsible," Crow said. "If 50% of students graduating from high school are inadequately prepared for the society in which we live, the universities and colleges are partly responsible."

Once the institution takes on that responsibility outside of its walls, then its contribution to society becomes real in a daily way.

"Then we will have the emergence of a new type of American research university, one which is devoted to the actual measured success of the society in which it is embedded," Crow added. "Not in an abstract intergenerational way but in a functional way. In a day-to-day way."

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MIT senior Owen Dugan, graduate student Vittorio Colicci ’22, predoctoral research fellow Carine You ’22, and recent alumna Carina Letong Hong ’22 are recipients of this year’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarships. The competitive fellowship, now in its seventh year, funds up to three years of graduate studies in any field at Stanford University. To date, 22 MIT students and alumni have been awarded Knight-Hennessy Scholarships.

“We are excited for these students to continue their education at Stanford with the generous support of the Knight Hennessy Scholarship,” says Kim Benard, associate dean of distinguished fellowships in Career Advising and Professional Development. “They have all demonstrated extraordinary dedication, intellect, and leadership, and this opportunity will allow them to further hone their skills to make real-world change.”

Vittorio Colicci ’22

Vittorio Colicci, from Trumbull, Connecticut, graduated from MIT in May 2022 with a BS in aerospace engineering and physics. He will receive his master’s degree in planetary sciences this spring. At Stanford, Colicci will pursue a PhD in earth and planetary sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He hopes to investigate how surface processes on Earth and Mars have evolved through time alongside changes in habitability. Colicci has worked largely on spacecraft engineering projects, developing a monodisperse silica ceramic for electrospray thrusters and fabricating high-energy diffraction gratings for space telescopes. As a Presidential Graduate Fellow at MIT, he examined the influence of root geometry on soil cohesion for early terrestrial plants using 3D-printed reconstructions. Outside of research, Colicci served as co-director of TEDxMIT and propulsion lead for the MIT Rocket Team. He is also passionate about STEM engagement and outreach, having taught educational workshops in Zambia and India.

Owen Dugan, from Sleepy Hollow, New York, is a senior majoring in physics. As a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, he will pursue a PhD in computer science at the Stanford School of Engineering. Dugan aspires to combine artificial intelligence and physics, developing AI that enables breakthroughs in physics and using physics techniques to design more capable and safe AI systems. He has collaborated with researchers from Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and DeepMind, and has presented his first-author research at venues including the International Conference on Machine Learning, the MIT Mechanistic Interpretability Conference, and the American Physical Society March Meeting. Among other awards, Dugan is a Hertz Finalist, a U.S. Presidential Scholar, an MIT Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awardee, a Research Science Institute Scholar, and a Neo Scholar. He is also a co-founder of VeriLens, a funded startup enabling trust on the internet by cryptographically verifying digital media.

Carina Letong Hong ’22

Carina Letong Hong, from Canton, China, is currently pursuing a JD/PhD in mathematics at Stanford. A first-generation college student, Hong graduated from MIT in May 2022 with a double major in mathematics and physics and was inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society. She then earned a neuroscience master’s degree with dissertation distinctions from the University of Oxford, where she conducted artificial intelligence and machine learning research at Sainsbury Wellcome Center’s Gatsby Unit. At Stanford Law School, Hong provides legal aid to low-income workers and uses economic analysis to push for law enforcement reform. She has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals, served as an expert referee for journals and conferences, and spoken at summits in the United States, Germany, France, the U.K., and China. She was the recipient of the AMS-MAA-SIAM Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research, the highest honor for an undergraduate in mathematics in North America; the AWM Alice T. Schafer Prize for Mathematical Excellence, given annually to an undergraduate woman in the United States; the Maryam Mirzakhani Fellowship; and a Rhodes Scholarship.

Carine You ’22

Carine You, from San Diego, California, graduated from MIT in May 2022 with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and in mathematics. Since graduating, You has worked as a predoctoral research assistant with Professor Amy Finkelstein in the MIT Department of Economics, where she has studied the quality of Medicare nursing home care and the targeting of medical screening technologies. This fall, You will embark on a PhD in economic analysis and policy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She wishes to address pressing issues in environmental and health-care markets, with a particular focus on economic efficiency and equity. You previously developed audio signal processing algorithms at Bose, refined mechanistic models to inform respiratory monitoring at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, and analyzed corruption in developmental projects in India at the World Bank. Through Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow, she taught computer science to Israeli and Palestinian students in Jerusalem and spearheaded an online pilot expansion for the organization. At MIT, she was named a Burchard Scholar.

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Three from MIT named 2023 Knight-Hennessy Scholars

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May. 13, 2024

Rice study reveals insights into protein evolution.

Rice University’s Peter Wolynes and his research team have unveiled a breakthrough in understanding how specific genetic sequences, known as pseudogenes, evolve. Their paper was published May 13 by the Proceedings of the National Academy  of Sciences of the United States of America Journal.

Led by Wolynes, the D.R. Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science, professor of chemistry, biosciences and physics and astronomy and co-director of the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP), the team focused on deciphering the complex energy landscapes of de-evolved, putative protein sequences corresponding to pseudogenes.

Pseudogenes are segments of DNA that once encoded proteins but have since lost their ability to do so due to sequence degradation — a phenomenon referred to as devolution. Here, devolution represents an unconstrained evolutionary process that occurs without the usual evolutionary pressures that regulate functional protein-coding sequences.

Despite their inactive state, pseudogenes offer a window into the evolutionary journey of proteins.

“Our paper explains that proteins can de-evolve,” Wolynes said. “A DNA sequence can, by mutations or other means, lose the signal that tells it to code for a protein. The DNA continues to mutate but does not have to lead to a sequence that can fold.”

The researchers studied junk DNA in a genome that has de-evolved. Their research revealed that a mutation accumulation in pseudogene sequences typically disrupts the native network of stabilizing interactions, making it challenging for these sequences, if they were to be translated, to fold into functional proteins.

However, the researchers observed instances where certain mutations unexpectedly stabilized the folding of pseudogenes at the cost of altering their previous biological functions.

They identified specific pseudogenes, such as cyclophilin A, profilin-1 and small ubiquitin-like modifier 2 protein, where stabilizing mutations occurred in regions crucial for binding to other molecules and other functions, suggesting a complex balance between protein stability and biological activity.

Moreover, the study highlights the dynamic nature of protein evolution as some previously pseudogenized genes may regain their protein-coding function over time despite undergoing multiple mutations.

Using sophisticated computational models, the researchers interpreted the interplay between physical folding landscapes and the evolutionary landscapes of pseudogenes. Their findings provide evidence that the funnellike character of folding landscapes comes from evolution.

“Proteins can de-evolve and have their ability to fold compromised over time due to mutations or other means,” Wolynes said. “Our study offers the first direct evidence that evolution is shaping the folding of proteins.”

Along with Wolynes, the research team includes lead author and applied physics graduate student Hana Jaafari ; CTBP postdoctoral associate Carlos Bueno ; University of Texas at Dallas graduate student Jonathan Martin; Faruck Morcos, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UT-Dallas; and CTBP biophysics researcher Nicholas P. Schafer.

The implications of this research extend beyond theoretical biology with potential applications in protein engineering, Jaafari said.

“It would be interesting to see if someone at a lab could confirm our results to see what happens to the pseudogenes that were more physically stable,” Jaafari said. “We have an idea based on our analysis, but it’d be compelling to get some experimental validation.”

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Research shows altered regulation of genes linked to prostate cancer among firefighters

Firefighters are exposed to a variety of chemicals in the course of their job, and some of those exposures may increase the risk of prostate cancer, according to new research published in Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.

Photo by Ted Horowitz Photography via Getty Images

Firefighters may have an increased risk of prostate cancer due to on-the-job chemical exposures, according to new research from the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and University of Michigan in collaboration with fire service partners and researchers around the country through the Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study .

Prostate cancer is the leading incident cancer among U.S. males. Firefighters are diagnosed with prostate cancer at a rate 1.21 times higher than the general population, possibly because of chemical exposures including smoke and firefighting foam during firefighting.

Some of those chemicals can affect how genes are expressed through a process called epigenetic modification, and certain epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation, contribute to cancer development. Researchers found evidence that experienced firefighters had different epigenetic modifications than new firefighters in regions linked to prostate cancer.

"With these published findings, we have clear evidence of the health risks that firefighters face due to cumulative exposure on the job," said Dr. Jeff Burgess, director of the Center for Firefighter Health Collaborative Research and professor at the UArizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. 

The paper, " Firefighting, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and DNA methylation of genes associated with prostate cancer risk ," was published in the journal Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.

Burgess, also a member of the BIO5 Institute , has been investigating firefighter health for decades. He collaborated with lead author Margaret Quaid, and researcher Jackie Goodrich, from the University of Michigan, who led the analysis on the methylation of genes.

They found that experienced firefighters had different epigenetic modifications at chromosome 8q24 – a particular area of the genome where epigenetic modifications have been linked to prostate cancer risk – compared with new firefighters. 

One class of chemicals that is linked with epigenetic modifications is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are used in firefighting foam as well as in many household items, including nonstick pans and water-resistant clothing. The research team also investigated whether there was a link between exposure to PFAS and epigenetic modification.

The results showed that, in many fire departments, new and experienced firefighters had similar exposure to PFAS. However, exposure to a specific PFAS chemical – branched perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA – was linked to epigenetic modifications.

"This study demonstrates the power of the Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study to combine data across grants – in this case awards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2014, 2015 and 2018 – to more powerfully evaluate questions from the fire service, this time around exposures and increased prostate cancer risk," Burgess said.

Other co-authors from the Zuckerman College of Public Health include toxicologist Shawn Beitel , research program administrative officer of the Firefighter Health Collaborative Research Program, and Sally Littau , health research coordinator. John Gulotta and Darin Wallentine of the Tucson Fire Department also contributed. The research team included members from the University of Miami, Rutgers University, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Orange County Fire Authority, and the Fire Protection Research Foundation.

This research was supported in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health, under award nos. P30ES006694 and P30ES017885; by the Federal Emergency Management Agency under award nos. EMW-2014-FP-00200, EMW-2015-FP-00213 and EMW-2018-FP-00086; and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A version of this article originally appeared on the UArizona Health Sciences website. 

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Last year, Richard Welsh reported findings on the persistence of racial disparities in exclusionary school discipline practices. Despite suspensions declining over the past decade as schools reformed their policies, exclusionary disciplinary rates remained higher for African American students. Across the South, in-school suspensions (ISS) are particularly prevalent and disruptive to the education of racially minoritized students. Given these facts, Welsh has embarked on a new co-design process of ISS that leverages an existing research-practice partnership with a school district in Georgia to crack the code on truly resolving racial inequities in school discipline policies and practices.

Supported by a $474,178 grant from the William T. Grant Foundation and a $125,000 grant from the American Institutes of Research Equity Initiative, Welsh is leading a three-year project with the school district to understand the role of race and power in equity-centered research-practice partnerships, how the dynamics of the partnership affect partnership activities, and how these activities influence research use by school administrators, district leaders, and school board members.

“These are the three key decisionmakers who can advance racial equity in school districts through policies, programs, and personnel. They make decisions about codes of conduct, which disciplinary programs to implement, and who to hire, including behavioral specialists to support students’ social-emotional development,” said Welsh, associate professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development.

“Improving the use of research evidence among education leaders via equity-centered research-practice partnerships can possibly lead to disruptive decisions necessary to addressing persistent racial inequities in school discipline. Also, turning the analytical lens on ourselves to examine how inequities might manifest in the partnership has implications for partnership and student outcomes,” Welsh added.

The research team will analyze their interviews with key decision makers, research-practice partnership primary investigators, and co-design team members. They will also observe school board meetings, school discipline committee meetings, and partnership meetings, as well as co-design workshops, district- and school-level documents, and materials to record the partnering process as well as the use of research evidence and disruptive decision-making. By engaging in cycles of disciplined inquiry to improve ISS processes, the partnership aims to reach its goal of improving youth outcomes.

The co-design process includes working with a team of school leaders and school personnel at three middle schools to analyze and reimagine their ISS process and infrastructure.

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Researchers publish largest-ever dataset of neural connections

A cubic millimeter of brain tissue may not sound like much. But considering that that tiny square contains 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses, all amounting to 1,400 terabytes of data, Harvard and Google researchers have just accomplished something stupendous.   

Led by Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and newly appointed dean of science , the Harvard team helped create the largest 3D brain reconstruction to date, showing in vivid detail each cell and its web of connections in a piece of temporal cortex about half the size of a rice grain.

Published in Science, the study is the latest development in a nearly 10-year collaboration with scientists at Google Research, combining Lichtman’s electron microscopy imaging with AI algorithms to color-code and reconstruct the extremely complex wiring of mammal brains. The paper’s three first co-authors are former Harvard postdoc Alexander Shapson-Coe, Michał Januszewski of Google Research, and Harvard postdoc Daniel Berger.

The ultimate goal, supported by the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative , is to create a comprehensive, high-resolution map of a mouse’s neural wiring, which would entail about 1,000 times the amount of data the group just produced from the 1-cubic-millimeter fragment of human cortex.  

“The word ‘fragment’ is ironic,” Lichtman said. “A terabyte is, for most people, gigantic, yet a fragment of a human brain — just a minuscule, teeny-weeny little bit of human brain — is still thousands of terabytes.”  

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The latest map contains never-before-seen details of brain structure, including a rare but powerful set of axons connected by up to 50 synapses. The team also noted oddities in the tissue, such as a small number of axons that formed extensive whorls. Because the sample was taken from a patient with epilepsy, the researchers don’t know whether such formations are pathological or simply rare.

Lichtman’s field is connectomics, which seeks to create comprehensive catalogs of brain structure, down to individual cells. Such completed maps would unlock insights into brain function and disease, about which scientists still know very little.

Google’s state-of-the-art AI algorithms allow for reconstruction and mapping of brain tissue in three dimensions. The team has also developed a suite of publicly available tools researchers can use to examine and annotate the connectome.

“Given the enormous investment put into this project, it was important to present the results in a way that anybody else can now go and benefit from them,” said Google collaborator Viren Jain.

Next the team will tackle the mouse hippocampal formation, which is important to neuroscience for its role in memory and neurological disease.

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