Academic Ranking of World Universities

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The Academic Ranking of World Universities[1] is compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Graduate School of Education. The ranking compared 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 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[2]. Liu and Cheng explain that the original purpose of doing the ranking was “to find out the gap between Chinese universities and world-class universities, particularly in terms of academic or research performance.”[3] The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and then updated annually.

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[edit] Commentary

As the first multi-indicator ranking of global universities, ARWU has attracted a great deal of attention from universities, governments and public media worldwide since its publication. 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” [4]. Bollag (2006) wrote on Chronicle of Higher Education that ARWU “is considered the most influential international ranking”[5].

One of the factors in the significant influence of ARWU is that its methodology looks 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.”[6] 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”[7].

Notably, 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[8]. 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.”[9] Also, Enserink (2007) referred to ARWU and argued in his 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”[10]. The world leading think tank organisation, Rand Corporation, also used the ARWU ranking as evidence in their consultancy paper to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology[11].

[edit] Criticism

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.[12]

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 that are used are not relevant, that the aggregation methodology is plagued by a number of major problems and that the whole exercise suffers from an insufficient attention paid to fundamental structuring issues [13].

The ARWU researchers themselves, N.C Liu and Y Cheng[14], think that the quality of universities cannot be precisely measured by mere numbers and any ranking can be controversial. They suggest that university and college rankings should be used with cautions and their methodologies must be read carefully before reporting or using the results.

[edit] Rankings

The table below contains the rankings from 2003 to 2008 for all universities which ranked at least 100 in one of the years.[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 fell below 100 in all six years.

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

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2007). "Academic Ranking of World Universities". Graduate School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. http://www.arwu.org/. Retrieved on Feb 19 2008. 
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ N.C. Liu and Y Cheng 2008 “Academic ranking of world universities: FAQ”[1], retrieved Jun 2009
  4. ^ The brains business, The Economist, Sep 8th 2005[2]
  5. ^ Bollag, B. 2006 International group endorses principles for ranking of higher education institutions. Chronicle of Higher Education, June 1st[3]
  6. ^ European Research Headlines 2003 Chinese study ranks world’s top 500 universities[4]
  7. ^ 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[5]
  8. ^ Destler, B. 2008 A new relationship. Nature, 453, 853-854, Dec 2008[6]
  9. ^ Figel, A. 2007 Asia threatens to knock British universities off the top table, The Times [7]
  10. ^ Enserink, M. 2007 Who ranks the university rankers? Science vol317(5841), pp.1026-1028{http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5841/1026}
  11. ^ Galama, T. et al. 2006 The Pursuit of Excellence. A European Institute of Technology. [8]
  12. ^ 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. http://www.springerlink.com/content/5672012246786l8j/. 
  13. ^ Jean-Charles Billaut, Denis Bouyssou et Philippe Vincke (April 2009). "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking ?". Internal report LI Tours. http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00388319/fr/. .
  14. ^ N.C. Liu and Y Cheng 2008 “Academic ranking of world universities: FAQ”[9], retrieved Jun 2009
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