The latest rankings in the philosophy field by the "Philosophical Gourmet Report" produced by Brian Leiter shows that UC Davis ties with UC San Diego at 20th out of the 42 U.S. universities rated. The report is aimed at informing potential graduate students and others about the quality of programs. Leiter took a reputational survey this summer of some 75 philosophers around the English-speaking world to create the ranking. The report was issued through Blackwell Publishers of the United Kingdom, which claims to be the world's largest independent academic publisher of books, journals and educational software. Last year UC Davis' Department of Philosophy was ranked at 23rd among the U.S. group. At the top of the 1999 list are Princeton, New York University, Rutgers University, University of Michigan and University of Pittsburgh. In general the UC campuses did well in the survey: UCLA tied at 6th place, Berkeley is in a large group at 9th place, UC Irvine was ranked 17th place, UC Riverside tied at 28th and UC Santa Barbara tied at 31st.