History of the London School of Economics
The history of the London School of Economics dates from 1895, when the School was founded by Fabian Society members Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, with funding provided by private philanthropy, including a bequest of £20,000 from Henry Hunt Hutchinson to the Fabian Society.
London School of Economics
In the "THE-QS World University Rankings", the School was ranked 11th in the world in 2004 and 2005, but dropped to 66th and 67th in the 2008 and 2009 edition. The School administration asserts that the fall was due to a controversial change in survey method which was detrimental to the ratings of social science institutions. In January 2010, THE concluded that the method employed by Quacquarelli Symonds, who conducted the survey on their behalf, was flawed in such a way that bias was introduced against certain institutions, including LSE. A representative of Thomson Reuters, THE's new partner, commented on the controversy: ""LSE stood at only 67th in the last Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings – some mistake surely? Yes, and quite a big one"." Nonetheless, after the change of data provider to Thomson Reuters the following year, LSE fell even further to 86th place, with the ranking described by a representative of Thomson Reuters as 'a fair reflection of their status as a world class university'.