[OJFord]

I mean when you write 'UK researchers find', especially to a global audience (which UoKentucky PR dept may not particularly have but HN does (Hello from the (the!) UK)) that it sounds more like the country UK than the.. no offence intended but not exactly world renowned university. (I've heard of Kentucky, probably my first time hearing of its university in its own right - though I might have assumed it had one.)

[goochphd]

I wouldn't read too much into it. UK is one of my alma maters. Everyone in that area of the US means "University of Kentucky" when they say "UK". It isn't a dig at the United Kingdom nor is it (I assume) an attempt to gain undue credibility by associating with the country. For the people there, UK as the University is simply the first order association for that acronym, rather than what is to them a faraway country that has no bearing on their day-to-day lives.

[OJFord]

> I wouldn't read too much into it.

I don't think I am? I'm just agreeing the title should be different here, and it has now changed so either the submitted or a mod agreed.

> Everyone in that area of the US means "University of Kentucky" when they say "UK". It isn't a dig at the United Kingdom nor is it (I assume) an attempt to gain undue credibility by associating with the country. For the people there, UK as the University is simply the first order association for that acronym, rather than what is to them a faraway country that has no bearing on their day-to-day lives.

Right, that's what I meant about audience, and it making sense for the UoK's PR dept.

[lol768]

It seems like a fairly mediocre institution, at least in terms of research output: https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/gene...

Not entirely surprised we'd never heard of it.

[NemoNobody]

I don't feel like that is a correct way to measure an institutions mediocrity or not. I have found that frequently cited Universities that publish many very popular articles per year per journal become less credible with fame. Hubris aside objectivity becomes lost in the money being made.

A far better measure of a University would be the people it graduates or by assessing the actual effects and impact of a research University with their published studies.

If the University of Kentucky specializes in agricultural research, that's most likely why you've never heard of them - perhaps they've made huge contributions to the elimination of terrible fungus plaguing a specific crop, nobody would hear about that.

Fixing the proverbial fungus is a far bigger deal tho than most of the ambiguous pop science publications coming out of far more "prestigious" institutions these days.

[genewitch]

a lot of southern schools publish in a different fashion. Most of my agricultural and husbandry knowledge of the area i live in comes from various universities .pdf files. My point is merely not publishing in Nature (or wherever) doesn't mean that serious research doesn't occur at that campus. Their "customers" may just be citizens of that state (or in some cases, that county).