UC Irvine discipline is 42nd in 2025 Times Higher Education listing
The University of California, Irvine has been ranked 42nd for the best psychology program among the world’s universities in the 2025 Times Higher Education Rankings by Subject.
“We are delighted to see the ranking for psychology at UC Irvine break the top 50 in the world,” Dean Jon Gould says. “It means recognition for the groundbreaking research our faculty are pursuing, and our Department of Psychological Science will continue to soar.”
The department’s 30 faculty members include prominent scholars who are experts on child development, memory, trauma and aging, among other topics. Their specialties include everything from developmental, social, personality, health, psychology and law, biological, clinical, cultural, community, environmental, and ecological psychology. They share a strong commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and to research that has the potential for application to important societal problems.
At UC Irvine, psychology is administered by the Department of Psychological Science in the School of Social Ecology and the Department of Cognitive Sciences in the School of Social Sciences.
The psychological science degree programs include:
- Undergraduate Program
- Ph.D. Programs
- Master of Legal and Forensic Psychology
- Post-Baccalaureate Program in Psychological Science
The school has 1,600 undergrads, majoring in psychological science, 110 MLFP students, 64 doctoral students and nine postdoctoral scholars in psychological science this year.
The Times Higher Education ranking “highlights our department's position as a globally recognized leader in psychology,” says Nicholas Scurich, professor and chair of psychological science. “It reflects the outstanding contributions of our faculty and students to advancing knowledge and making an impact in the field.”
The rankings are global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Eighteen calibrated performance indicators are used to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons.