Academic Ranking of World Universities

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Academic Ranking of World Universities
Categories Higher education
Frequency Annual
Publisher Shanghai Jiao Tong University; since 2009 published by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy
Country China
Language English
Website ARWU

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), commonly known as the Shanghai Ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University to rank universities globally.[1] The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually. Since 2009, the rankings have been published by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.[2] ARWU is the first global ranking of universities to be published.[3]

The ranking, backed by the Chinese government, was designed "to provide a global benchmark" against the various universities in China so they "could assess their progress."[4] The aim of the AWRU is for Chinese universities to "catch up" on "hard scientific research".[4]

The Academic Ranking of World Universities is regarded to be one of the three most influential and widely observed international university rankings, along with the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[5][6][7] It is said that its consistent and objective methodology is praised when compared with other rankings.[8] However, it has also been criticized for its heavy focus on the natural sciences over the social sciences or humanities, and on research over the quality of instruction.[5][6]

Contents

Methodology[edit]

The ranking compares 1200 higher education institutions worldwide according to a formula that took into account alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10 percent), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20 percent), highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories (20 percent), articles published in the journals Nature and Science (20 percent), the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index (20 percent) and the per capita academic performance (on the indicators above) of an institution (10 percent). The methodology is set out in an academic article by its originators, N.C. Liu and Y. Cheng.[9]

The methodology used by the Shanghai Rankings is largely academic and research oriented.

Influence[edit]

As the first multi-indicator ranking of global universities, ARWU has attracted a great deal of attention from universities, governments and media. A survey on higher education published by The Economist in 2005 commented ARWU as "the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities."[10] In 2010, the Chronicle of Higher Education called ARWU "the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities".[11]

One of the factors in the significant influence of ARWU is that its methodology is said to look globally sound and transparent. EU Research Headlines reported the ARWU's work on 31st Dec 2003: "The universities were carefully evaluated using several indicators of research performance."[12] Chancellor of Oxford University, Prof. Chris Patten, said "the methodology looks fairly solid ... it looks like a pretty good stab at a fair comparison." Vice-Chancellor of Australian National University, Prof. Ian Chubb, said "The SJTU rankings were reported quickly and widely around the world… (and they) offer an important comparative view of research performance and reputation." Margison (2007) also commented the ARWU ranking that one of the strengths of "the academically rigorous and globally inclusive Jiao Tong approach" is "constantly tuning its rankings and invites open collaboration in that."[13] Philip G. Altbach named ARWU's "consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency" as significant strengths.[14]

The ARWU ranking and its content have been widely cited and applied as a starting point for identifying national strengths and weaknesses as well as facilitating reform and setting new initiatives. Bill Destler (2008), the president of the Rochester Institute of Technology, draw reference to the ARWU ranking to analyze the comparative advantages the Western Europe and US have in terms of intellectual talent and creativity in his publication in the journal Nature.[15]

European commissioner of Education, Jan Figel, pointed out in an interview in 2007 that "if you look at the Shanghai index, we are the strongest continent in terms of numbers and potential but we are also shifting into a secondary position in terms of quality and attractiveness. If we don't act we will see an uptake or overtake by Chinese or Indian universities."[16] Also, Enserink (2007) referred to ARWU and argued in a paper published in Science that "France's poor showing in the Shanghai ranking ... helped trigger a national debate about higher education that resulted in a new law... giving universities more freedom."[17] The world leading think tank Rand Corporation used the ARWU ranking as evidence in their consultancy paper to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.[18]

In two subsequent research papers[19][20] published by Academic Leadership (2009), then in an article [21] published by the Times Higher Education (2009), Paul Z. Jambor of Korea University established the connection between any unfavorable image/reputation universities may develop (and/or their association, by country, to those universities linked to the wrongdoing) to a halt in their climb or even to a drop in their THE – QS World University Rankings. This is because 40% and 10% of THE – QS World Methodology is based on Academic Peer Review and Employer Review respectively. In essence, any unfavorable image developed by a group of universities, associated by country, tends to harm their collective rankings. For this reason, universities worldwide should seriously consider adhering to internationally accepted standards so that they do not run the risk of sliding in the ranks on the international front. Consequently, a number of critics consider this aspect of THE – QS World University Rankings unfair and even biased.[22]

The new Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-Reuters), published since 2010 is based on a revised Methodology.[23] In the Methodology of the THE-Reuters World University Rankigs, the 'Papers per research and academic staff' {at 4.5%} and the 'Citation impact (normalised average citation per paper)' {at 32.5%} indicators make it evident that a university's ranking heavily relies on the number and quality of research papers written by its faculty. With 95% of research papers written in English,[24] the relationship between English language use and a university's subsequent ranking thus becomes ever more clear. Jambor highlights the connection between actual English use and university rankings in a pair of research papers[25][26] respectively published by the US Department of Education: ERIC and Academic Leadership.

Criticism[edit]

College and university rankings often stimulate controversy (see Criticism of college and university rankings (North America) and Criticism of college and university rankings (2007 United States)) and the ARWU is no exception. A 2007 paper published in the journal Scientometrics found that the results from the Shanghai rankings could not be reproduced from raw data using the method described by Liu and Cheng.[27]

In a report from April 2009, J-C. Billaut, D. Bouyssou and Ph. Vincke analyze how the ARWU works, using their insights as specialists of Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). Their main conclusions are that the criteria used are not relevant; that the aggregation methodology has a number of major problems; and that insufficient attention has been paid to fundamental choices of criteria.[28]

The ARWU researchers themselves, N.C Liu and Y Cheng,[29] think that the quality of universities cannot be precisely measured by mere numbers and any ranking must be controversial. They suggest that university and college rankings should be used with caution and their methodologies must be understood clearly before reporting or using the results.

Others have pointed out, the ARWU is known for "relying solely on research indicators", and "the ranking is heavily weighted toward institutions whose faculty or alumni have won Nobel Prizes": it does not measure "the quality of teaching or the quality of humanities."[6][30]

Ioannides et al. suggested that (in common with all ranking systems they reviewed), the ranking lacked construct validity modest concordance between the Shanghai and Times rankings. They highlighted measurement precision, and transparent methodology as important issues.[31]

Like the Times Higher Education's rankings, the ARWU has been criticized by the European Commission as well as some EU member states for "favour[ing] Anglo-Saxon higher education institutions".[32]

20% of the weight of the criteria from the number of teachers who received a Nobel Prize or Fields Medal. However, a university with a high budget may propose a position as a teacher, without having a significant work load to increase the reputation of the institution. In addition, medals, especially in the case of the Nobel Prize, has produced the bulk of their research work before the award and their presence as a quality of future research is questionable.

Nobel Prize received by a French university professor can claim half a Nobel obtained by a British or American university professor. Indeed, the French research takes place usually in joint research units, involving academics at the CNRS, the Shanghai ranking assigns 50% of the profit to the university and 50% of the body CNRS4. But since the CNRS and other French research organizations do not appear in the Shanghai ranking, it means "half of the benefit of the price benefits nobody and evaporates completely" (Albert Fert). Regarding the 60% rating, which depends on the count of items and the number of citations, "the general principle is the same as the price. (...) In the case of publications of a university laboratory involving the university and an organization such as CNRS, about 50% of the profit will generally university and 50% will evaporate does not benefit person. "

The ranking considers almost exclusively English-language publications (mainly American, British and Canadian). Even if it has become desirable in some areas of science, published in a British journal (including Nature) or American (including Science), promotion of work is also done at conferences and in journals not Anglo-Saxon, and that for various reasons (cost, accessibility, relevance, impact, etc..). Moreover, if the two journals centralize a significant proportion of publications in the natural sciences, humanities influence is weaker. In fact, the publication of the work of the humanities does not occur predominantly in the English language. It is, as such, neglected by this classification.

Education systems are different, some with selective admission universities (Anglophone countries) and others not (France). However, research conducted by the students starts from a master, where France is also a practical selection. University budgets can vary by several orders of magnitude, Harvard, with a capital of 35 billion $, is 100 times richer than Paris VI Jussieu. The size is also very variable (the urban area of Paris has 17 universities and many colleges downsized, each of these institutions is counted separately, while the Anglo-Saxon universities meet several faculty gathered in the ranking) .

Taking into account the quality of education by the sheer number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals alumni may seem simplistic. Indeed, the role of a university is not only to train other researchers, and no resources dedicated to education as a whole is taken into account directly.

Rankings[edit]

The table below contains the overall rankings as ordinal numbers (i.e., 1 is best, 2 is second best, etc.) from 2003 to 2012 for all universities that ranked in the top 100 in one of the years tabulated.[1] The ranking is omitted for years in which the school did not land within the top 100. Note the full ranking contains over 500 universities. If a university is not listed in this table, it did not rank in the top 100 in any of the years tabulated.

Top 100 world universities
University 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Denmark Aarhus University 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 93 97 98 86 86
United States Arizona State University 1000 1000 1000 100 96 93 94 81 78 79
Australia Australian National University 49 53 53 54 57 59 59 59 70 64
United States Boston University 98 87 81 81 85 83 74 77 76 71
United States Brown University 49 82 86 85 70 71 69 65 65 65
United States California Institute of Technology 3 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
United States Carnegie Mellon University 61 62 62 56 60 62 59 58 55 51
United States Case Western Reserve University 51 65 65 70 78 83 87 97 97 99
United States Columbia University 10 9 9 7 7 7 7 8 8 8
United States Cornell University 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 13 13
United States Duke University 33 31 31 31 32 33 31 35 35 36
France École normale supérieure - Paris 1000 85 93 99 83 73 70 71 69 73
United States Emory University 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 100 100 1000 1000
Germany Free University of Berlin 95 1000 1000 99 83 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Germany Goethe University Frankfurt 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 100 1000
United States Harvard University 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Israel Hebrew University of Jerusalem 94 90 90 60 64 65 64 52 57 53
Germany Humboldt University of Berlin 1000 95 95 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United Kingdom Imperial College London 17 23 23 23 23 27 26 26 24 24
United States Indiana University - Bloomington 1000 1000 1000 97 90 92 93 90 82 84
United States Johns Hopkins University 24 22 22 20 19 20 19 18 18 17
Sweden Karolinska Institutet 39 46 45 48 53 51 50 42 44 42
United Kingdom King's College London 75 77 77 83 83 81 65 63 68 68
Japan Kyoto University 30 21 21 22 22 23 24 24 27 26
Sweden Lund University 93 92 92 90 97 97 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3
Canada McGill University 79 61 61 62 63 60 65 61 64 63
Canada McMaster University 86 88 88 90 87 89 91 88 89 92
United States Michigan State University 87 80 80 80 80 83 86 86 92 96
Russia Moscow State University 1000 66 66 70 76 70 77 74 77 80
Japan Nagoya University 68 97 97 98 94 1000 82 79 94 96
United States New York University 55 32 32 29 30 31 32 31 29 27
United States North Carolina State University 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States Northwestern University 29 30 30 33 29 30 30 29 30 30
United States Ohio State University 81 73 73 66 61 62 62 59 63 65
Japan Osaka University 53 54 54 61 67 68 71 75 82 83
United States Pennsylvania State University 40 43 43 42 43 42 45 43 45 49
United States Princeton University 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 7 7 7
United States Purdue University 80 71 71 73 68 65 65 69 61 56
United States Rice University 61 75 75 87 87 97 99 99 93 91
United States Rockefeller University 28 29 29 30 30 32 32 34 33 32
United States Rutgers University 38 44 44 46 47 54 55 54 59 61
United States Stanford University 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 2
Sweden Stockholm University 1000 97 97 84 86 86 88 79 81 81
Switzerland ETH Zurich 25 27 27 27 27 24 23 23 23 23
Germany Technical University of Munich 60 45 52 54 56 57 57 56 47 53
Israel Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 78
United States Texas A&M University 70 1000 1000 88 91 88 88 95 100 93
Japan Tohoku University 64 69 69 76 76 79 84 84 97 1000
Japan Tokyo Institute of Technology 1000 1000 1000 89 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States Tufts University 83 99 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States University of Arizona 55 76 76 76 74 77 77 78 80 77
Switzerland University of Basel 96 91 91 81 82 87 85 86 89 85
United Kingdom University of Birmingham 1000 93 93 90 92 91 94 99 1000 1000
Germany University of Bonn 1000 99 99 1000 99 97 98 93 94 1000
United Kingdom University of Bristol 55 60 60 62 62 61 61 66 70 70
Canada University of British Columbia 35 36 36 36 36 35 36 36 37 39
United States University of California, Berkeley 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 4 4
United States University of California, Davis 36 42 42 42 43 48 49 46 48 47
United States University of California, Irvine 44 55 55 44 45 46 46 46 48 45
United States University of California, Los Angeles 15 16 16 14 13 13 13 13 12 12
United States University of California, Riverside 88 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States University of California, San Diego 14 13 13 13 14 14 14 14 15 15
United States University of California, San Francisco 13 17 17 18 18 18 18 18 17 18
United States University of California, Santa Barbara 26 35 35 35 35 36 35 32 33 34
United Kingdom University of Cambridge 5 3 2 2 4 4 4 5 5 5
United States University of Chicago 11 10 10 8 9 9 8 9 9 9
United Kingdom University College London 20 25 25 26 25 22 21 21 20 21
United States University of Colorado 31 34 34 34 34 34 34 32 32 33
Denmark University of Copenhagen 65 59 59 56 46 45 43 40 43 44
United Kingdom University of Edinburgh 43 47 47 52 53 55 53 54 53 51
United States University of Florida 75 67 67 53 51 58 58 68 72 72
Germany University of Freiburg 1000 88 88 93 94 96 1000 1000 1000 99
Switzerland University of Geneva 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 73 69
Belgium University of Ghent 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 90 89 89
Germany University of Göttingen 91 79 79 85 87 90 90 93 86 1000
Netherlands University of Groningen 84 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Germany University of Heidelberg 58 64 64 66 65 67 63 63 62 62
Finland University of Helsinki 74 72 72 74 73 68 72 72 74 73
United States University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 45 25 25 25 26 26 25 25 25 25
United States University of Illinois at Chicago 96 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States University of Iowa 90 1000 1000 95 97 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Netherlands University of Leiden 78 63 63 72 71 76 72 70 65 73
United Kingdom University of Manchester 89 78 53 50 48 40 41 44 38 40
United States University of Maryland, College Park 75 57 57 37 37 37 37 36 38 38
Australia University of Melbourne 92 82 82 78 79 73 75 62 60 57
United States University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 21 19 19 21 21 21 22 22 22 22
United States University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 37 33 33 32 33 28 28 28 28 29
Germany University of Munich 48 51 51 51 53 55 55 52 54 60
United States University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 52 56 56 59 58 38 39 41 42 41
United Kingdom University of Nottingham 1000 80 80 79 81 82 83 84 85 86
Norway University of Oslo 63 68 68 68 69 64 65 75 75 67
United Kingdom University of Oxford 9 8 8 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
France Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University 65 41 41 45 39 42 40 39 41 42
France University of Paris-Sud 11 72 48 48 64 52 49 43 45 40 37
United States University of Pennsylvania 18 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 14 14
United States University of Pittsburgh 53 48 48 48 49 52 50 56 57 58
Australia University of Queensland 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 86 90
Italy Sapienza University of Rome 70 93 97 100 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States University of Rochester 72 52 52 74 75 73 77 82 84 86
United Kingdom University of Sheffield 68 69 69 69 72 77 81 88 97 1000
United States University of Southern California 40 48 48 47 50 50 46 46 46 46
France University of Strasbourg 1000 82 82 96 99 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Australia University of Sydney 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 97 94 92 96 93
United States University of Texas at Austin 47 40 40 39 38 39 38 38 35 35
United States University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 34 36 36 38 39 41 48 49 51 48
Japan University of Tokyo 19 14 14 19 20 19 20 20 21 20
Canada University of Toronto 23 24 24 24 23 24 27 27 26 27
United States University of Utah 81 95 95 94 93 79 80 82 79 82
Netherlands Utrecht University 40 39 39 40 42 47 52 50 48 53
Austria University of Vienna 84 86 86 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
United States University of Virginia 67 1000 1000 1000 1000 95 91 96 1000 1000
United States University of Washington 16 20 20 17 16 16 16 16 16 16
Australia University of Western Australia 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 96
United States University of Wisconsin–Madison 27 18 18 16 17 17 17 17 19 19
Switzerland University of Zurich 45 57 57 58 58 53 54 51 56 59
Sweden Uppsala University 59 74 74 65 66 71 76 66 67 73
United States Vanderbilt University 32 38 38 41 41 42 41 53 52 50
United States Washington University in St. Louis 22 28 28 28 28 29 29 30 31 31
Israel Weizmann Institute of Science 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 93
United States Yale University 8 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2007). "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007". Graduate School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Archived from the original on 18 February 2008. Retrieved Feb 19 2008. 
  2. ^ 'ARWU : About ARWU'
  3. ^ http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/15631_ENG_HTML.php
  4. ^ a b University rankings: which world university rankings should we trust?. The Telegraph.
  5. ^ a b Ariel Zirulnick. "New world university ranking puts Harvard back on top". The Christian Science Monitor. 
  6. ^ a b c Indira Samarasekera and Carl Amrhein. "Top schools don't always get top marks". Edmonton Journal. Archived from the original on 2010-10-03. 
  7. ^ We're fighting above our weight when it comes to uni rankings
  8. ^ Richard Holmes (2012-07-01). "Power and responsibility – The growing influence of global rankings". University World News. Retrieved 2012-09-21. 
  9. ^ N.C. Liu and Y Cheng 2005 “Academic ranking of world universities – methodologies and problems”, Higher Education in Europe, Vol. 30, No 2., and earlier in the proceedings of Meeting of the International Rankings Expert Group 2004.
  10. ^ A survey of higher education: A world of opportunity, The Economist, Sep 8th 2005
  11. ^ International Group Announces Audit of University Rankings – The International Chronicle of Higher Education
  12. ^ European Research Headlines 2003 Chinese study ranks world's top 500 universities [1]
  13. ^ Marginson, S. 2007 Global university comparisons: the second stage. Paper presented at the Symposium on International Trends in University Ranking and Classifications. Feb 12, 2007, Griffith University, Australia[2]
  14. ^ The State of the Rankings – Inside Higher Ed
  15. ^ Destler, B. 2008 A new relationship. Nature, 453, 853-854, Dec 2008
  16. ^ Figel, A. 2007 Asia threatens to knock British universities off the top table, The Times [3]
  17. ^ Enserink, M. 2007 Who ranks the university rankers? Science vol 317 (5841), pp. 1026-1028{http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5841/1026.full}.
  18. ^ Galama, T. et al. 2006 The Pursuit of Excellence. A European Institute of Tech. [4]
  19. ^ Jambor, Paul Z. 'Why South Korean Universities Have Low International Rankings', Academic Leadership: Volume 7 – Issue 1, February 20, 2009
  20. ^ Jambor, Paul Z. 'Why South Korean Universities Have Low International Rankings – Part II: The Student Side of the Equation', Academic Leadership: Volume 7 - Issue 3, August 10, 2009
  21. ^ Jambor, Paul Z., 'Slide and prejudice', Times Higher Education, December 10, 2009
  22. ^ Helena Spongenberg (2009-11-26). "EUobserver / EU to test new university ranking in 2010". Euobserver.com. Archived from the original on 19 August 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-16. 
  23. ^ "Times Higher Education World University Rankings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2012-09-21. 
  24. ^ ÄŒesky (2003-12-27). "English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2012-09-21. 
  25. ^ Jambor, Paul Z. (2012) 'English Language Influence on THE – Reuters 2010 University Rankings: The Evidence: A South Korean Model in a Global Context', US Department of Education: Educational Resources Information Center
  26. ^ Jambor, Paul Z. (2010)'The Reluctance of Korean Education in the Face of Change', Academic Leadership: Volume 8 - Issue 3, June 24, 2010
  27. ^ Răzvan V. Florian (June 2007). "Irreproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities". Scientometrics 72 (1): 25–32. doi:10.1007/s11192-007-1712-1. 
  28. ^ Jean-Charles Billaut, Denis Bouyssou et Philippe Vincke (April 2009). "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking ?". Internal report LI Tours. 
  29. ^ N.C. Liu and Y Cheng 2008 “Academic ranking of world universities: FAQ”[5], retrieved Jun 2009
  30. ^ J. Scott Armstrong and Tad Sperry (1994). "Business School Prestige: Research versus Teaching". Energy & Environment 18 (2): 13–43. 
  31. ^ http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7015-5-30.pdf
  32. ^ EUobserver / EU to test new university ranking in 2010

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