Climbing on global ranking
SATISFIED: "This means NUPI has a visible brand and is an attractive partner in the international landscape," says NUPI director Ulf Sverdrup in response to the NUPI rankings in the Global go to think tank index report.
SATISFIED: "This means NUPI has a visible brand and is an attractive partner in the international landscape," says NUPI director Ulf Sverdrup in response to the NUPI rankings in the Global go to think tank index report.
2015 was a great year for NUPI as a research institution. The institute was one of only a few who was awarded funding from the prestigious TOPPFORSK programme, and was chosen to coordinate an extensive research project within the framework of the European Union’s H2020 programme.
When NUPI continues to climb and is featured in several new categories in the Global Go to think tank index report 2015, this is another confirmation that the staff’s hard work pays off.
‘Our work is getting noticed. This is first and foremost a result of long-time efforts, both in quality assurance and ambitions. This shows that NUPI is a visible institution globally. For an institute in a small country like ours to be on these lists at all, when more than 6500 think tanks are considered, is actually a success disproportionate to our size. We are very happy about this, and we are happy for PRIO and CMI as well,’ says NUPI Director Ulf Sverdrup.
Solid leaps forward
Annually, the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of University of Pennsylvania publishes the renowned Global Go to think tank index report, the most respected of its kind. One of TTCSP’s main ambitions is to maintain the largest, most comprehensive database of over 6500 think tanks worldwide. A small number of these think tanks are nominated to be ranked each year, between 40 and 150 depending on the category. Making the ranking list is therefore an achievement in itself.
In the category for top government affiliated think tanks, NUPI ranks on 3rd place.
Among the think tanks ranked in the category tor the whole world, NUPI ranks at place number 56, which means a solid leap from place number 73 last year. This places NUPI in the top one-third of the think tanks on this list. In the category Best worldwide think tanks outside the U.S., NUPI ranks at number 48.
New ground
This year NUPI was ranked in a total of nine different categories, and reached number 25 in the Top foreign policy and international affairs category, and 18 in the category Top international development.
‘In this ranking, one is nominated by other think tanks. This means NUPI has a visible brand and is an attractive partner in the international landscape. However, it is important to say that this is one out of several rankings. This time we did well,’ says Sverdrup.
The institute is also a newcomer in several categories: Best new idea or paradigm, Think tanks to watch, Best advocacy campaign and Best Quality Assurance and Integrity Policies and Procedures.
Why think tanks matter
‘Having high quality research environments in the field of politics is a resource for the Norwegian society and for Norwegian foreign policy. The way international policy is made today there is great need for collaboration between research, government and other institutions, and because of this, think tanks are important. The same goes for international processes,’ Sverdrup notes.
Want to know more about think tanks and the TTCSP’s index? Check out #ThinkTanksMatter and @TTCSP on twitter.
Fact
The TTCPS conducts research on the role policy institutes play in governments and in civil societies around the world. TTCSP’s initial effort to produce a global ranking of the world’s leading think tanks in 2006 was in response to a series of requests from donors, government officials, journalists, and scholars who wanted the TTCSP to identify the leading think tanks in the world.