Top 10, Yet Again
April 2025
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Last week our UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering rose to #10 in the nation in the influential U.S. News & World Report Rankings of Best Engineering Schools. This is up from #11 last year. We are also the #6 public engineering school in the nation, up from #7 last year.
To our Jacobs School faculty, staff and students CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU!
Our work matters now more than ever. Full stop.
Our mission to deliver positive impacts to society by advancing engineering and computer science research, education and entrepreneurship is unwavering. This mission is fueled by the efforts of our incredible faculty, staff and students – in concert with our larger Jacobs School community.
In fact, as a community, we just ranked #2 in the nation among all engineering schools for research expenditures per faculty member.
Also, we earned the #1 ranking in the nation among public engineering schools for citations per publication.
Earlier this year, I noted that our $316M in Jacobs School research funding is balanced nearly 50/50 between industry/private/philanthropic funding and government funding.
We depend on both of these funding categories equally. Fundamental research surfaces applied research challenges. Tackling these applied challenges inspires even deeper fundamental research questions.
The symbiosis between these dual funding streams at the Jacobs School is more potent than ever. This interplay between fundamental and applied research brings me back to one of my mantras as an engineering dean: the great engineering schools collaborate their way to relevance.
This relevance is the fundamental underlying driver behind the statistics that push us up in these rankings. This relevance is what allows us to do the engineering and computer science work that improves lives. (See this news coverage of our earthquake shake table in light of this week's San Diego quake.)
But the balanced funding streams that drive our relevance and positive impacts are now at risk. Our campuswide Behind Every Breakthrough campaign is an effort to raise awareness and advocate for the work that we do – work that is more important than ever. Engineering schools need to pursue both fundamental and applied research in order to fulfill our mission to society. Together, we make bold possible.
Read the full April 2025 Jacobs School newsletter online.
As always, I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu
Sincerely,
Al
Albert ("Al") P. Pisano
Dean, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives