Academic Ranking of World Universities

Academic Ranking of World Universities

Categories	Higher education
Frequency	Annual
Publisher	Shanghai Ranking Consultancy (2009–present) Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2003–2008)
Country	China
Language	Ten languages with English & Chinese
Website	www.shanghairanking.com

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as Shanghai Ranking, is an annual publication of university rankings by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.^[1] The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2003, the first global ranking with multifarious indicators,^[2] after which a board of international advisories was established to provide suggestions.^[3][4] The publication currently includes world's overall and subject league tables, alongside independent regional Greater China Ranking and Macedonian HEIs Ranking. ARWU is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely observed university measures, alongside QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.^[5][6][7][8] It is praised for its objective methodology but draws some condemnation for narrowly focusing on raw research power, undermining humanities and quality of instruction.^[5][7][9]

Global rankings

Overall

Methodology

ARWU methodology^[10]

Criterion	Indicator	Code	Weighting	Source
Quality of education	Alumni as Nobel laureates & Fields Medalists	Alumni	10%	Official websites of Nobel Laureates & Fields Medalists[Note 1]
Quality of faculty	Staff as Nobel Laureates & Fields Medalists Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories	Award HiCi	20% 20%	Official websites of Nobel Laureates & Fields Medalists[Note 1] Thomson Reuters' survey of highly cited researchers[Note 1]
Research output	Papers published in Nature and Science[* 1] Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index	N&S PUB	20% 20%	Citation index
Per capita performance	Per capita academic performance of an institution	PCP	10%	--
* Not applicable to institutions specialized in humanities and social sciences whose N&S scores are relocated to other indicators.

Reception

ARWU is praised by several media and institutions for its methodology and influence. 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."^[11] In 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education called ARWU "the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities".^[12] EU Research Headlines reported the ARWU's work on 31 December 2003: "The universities were carefully evaluated using several indicators of research performance."^[13] Chancellor of University of Oxford, Chris Patten and former Vice-Chancellor of Australian National University, Ian Chubb, said: "the methodology looks fairly solid ... it looks like a pretty good stab at a fair comparison." and "The SJTU rankings were reported quickly and widely around the world… (and they) offer an important comparative view of research performance and reputation." respectively.^[14] Philip G. Altbach named ARWU's 'consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency' as significant strengths.^[15] Whilst ARWU has originated in China, the ranking have been praised for being unbiased towards Asian institutions.^[16]

Criticism

Like all other rankings, ARWU has criticism. It is condemned for "relying too much on award factors" thus undermining the importance of quality of instruction and humanities.^{[5][7][17][18]} 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.^[19] A 2013 paper in the same journal finally showed how the Shanghai ranking results could be reproduced.^[20] In a report from April 2009, J-C. Billaut, D. Bouyssou and Ph. Vincke analyse 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.^[21] The ARWU researchers themselves, N.C Liu and Y Cheng, 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. ARWU has been criticised by the European Commission as well as some EU member states for "favour[ing] Anglo-Saxon higher education institutions". For instance, ARWU is repeatedly criticised in France, where it triggers an annual controversy, focusing on its ill-adapted character to the French academic system^[22][23] and the unreasonable weight given to research often performed decades ago.^[24] It is also criticised in France for its use as a motivation for fusing universities into larger ones.^[25] Indeed, number of publications or award winners will mechanically add as universities are grouped, independently of research (or teaching) quality.

Results

Academic Ranking of World Universities (500) – Top 50^{[26][Note 2]}

Institution	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Harvard University	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Stanford University	2	2	3	3	2	2	2	3	2	2	2	2	2	2
University of California, Berkeley	4	4	4	4	3	3	3	2	4	4	3	4	4	3
University of Cambridge	5	3	2	2	4	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	4
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	4	3	3	5
Princeton University	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6	6	6
University of Oxford	9	8	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	9	10	7
California Institute of Technology	3	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	7	7	8
Columbia University	10	9	7	7	7	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	8	9
University of Chicago	11	10	9	8	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	10

Alternative

As it may take much time for rising universities to produce Nobel laureates and Fields Medalists with numbers comparable to those of older institutions, the Institute created alternative rankings excluding such award factors so as to provide another way of comparisons of academic performance. The weighting of all the other factors remains unchanged, thus the grand total of 70%.

Alternative Rankings (500) – Top 50^{[Note 2]}

Institution	2014[27]	2015[28]
Harvard University	1	1
Stanford University	2	2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	4	3
University of California, Berkeley	3	4
California Institute of Technology	5	5
University of Oxford	6	6
University of Cambridge	8	7
University of California, San Diego	7	8
University of Washington	10	9
Yale University	9	10

Subject

There are two categories in ARWU's disciplinary rankings, broad subject fields and specific subjects. The methodology is similar to that adopted in the overall table, including award factors, paper citation, and the number of highly cited scholars.

Broad fields[29]	Specific subjects[30]
Natural sciences and mathematics	Mathematics
Computer science and engineering	Physics
Life and agricultural sciences	Chemistry
Clinical medicine and pharmacy	Computer science
Social sciences	Economics and business

Regional rankings

Considering the development of specific areas, two independent regional league tables with different methodologies were launched.

Greater China

Methodology

Methodology of Greater China Rankings^{[31][Note 2]}

Criterion	Indicator	Weight
Education	Percentage of graduate students Percentage of non-local students Ratio of academic staff to students Doctoral degrees awarded Alumni as Nobel Laureates & Fields Medalists	5% 5% 5% 10% 10%
Research	Annual research income Nature & Science Papers SCIE & SSCI papers International patents	5% 10% 10% 10%
Faculty	Percentage of academic staff with a doctoral degree Staff as Nobel Laureates and Fields Medalists Highly cited researchers	5% 10% 10%
Resources	Annual budget	5%

Results

Greater China Rankings (100) – Top 10^{[Note 2][32]}

Institution	2011	2012	2013	2014
Tsinghua University	1	1	1	1
National Tsing Hua University	4	3	3	2
National Taiwan University	1	2	2	3
The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology	5	4	7	4
Peking University	7	7	5	5
The University of Hong Kong	3	6	4	6
The Chinese University of Hong Kong	6	5	6	7
University of Science & Technology of China	9	11	10	8
National Chiao Tung University	8	8	8	9
Zhejiang University	10	9	9	10

Republic of Macedonia

Methodology

Methodology of rankings of Macedonian higher educational institutions^{[33][Note 3]}

Criterion	Indicator	Weight
Teaching and learning	Percentage of incoming students who participated in state matura examination Average score of incoming students in state matura examination Percentage of foreign students Academic staff / undergraduate students ratio Proportion of academic staff with the highest degree Proportion of academic staff with 1 year or above foreign work experience Proportion of students with academic scholarships from Ministry of Education and Science Institutional income per student Spending on library resources per student Spending on IT infrastructure and equipment per student Proportion of undergraduates who graduated within regular time Proportion of undergraduates with 3 months or above foreign study/practical experience under the state-level agreements Employment rate of undergraduates	5% 5% 5% 4% 8% 6% 6% 2% 1% 1% 1% 2% 4%
Research	Total research income per academic staff Research income from the Ministry of Education & Science per academic staff Papers published in peer reviewed journals per academic staff Papers indexed by Web of Science per academic staff Books published per academic staff Numbers of doctorates granted per academic staff	4% 6% 6% 10% 4% 6%
Social service	Research income from industry per academic staff Patents issued per academic staff	6% 8%

Results

Macedonian HEIs Rankings (20) – Top 10^{[Note 2][34][35]}

Institution	2011–12	2013–14
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje	1	1
Goce Delčev University of Štip	3	2
South East European University	2	3
University of Information Science and Technology "St. Paul The Apostle"	5	4
University "Ss. Kliment Ohridski" – Bitola	4	5
University American College Skopje	10	6
International Balkan University	6	7
FON University	11	8
State University of Tetovo	13	9
European University-Republic of Macedonia	7	10

Notes

1. Official datum sources adopted by ARWU: Nobel Laureate Web, Fields Medalist Web, Thomson Reuters' survey of highly cited researchers & Thomson Reuters' Web of Science.
2. Order shown in accordance with the latest result.
3. This table shows the latest version which is different from that of the previous year.

References

1. "About Academic Ranking of World Universities". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2014. Since 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
2. "World university rankings: how much influence do they really have?". The Guardian. 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2015. The first international rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities or Shanghai Rankings
3. "Shanghai rankings rattle European universities". ABS-CBN Interactive. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2015. France's higher education minister travelled to Jiaotong University's suburban campus last month to discuss the rankings, the Norwegian education minister came last year and the Danish minister is due to visit next month.; The idea for the rankings was born in 1998, when Beijing decreed China needed several world-leading universities.
4. "ARWU International Advisory Board". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
5. "University rankings: which world university rankings should we trust?". The Telegraph. 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015. It is a remarkably stable list, relying on long-term factors such as the number of Nobel Prize-winners a university has produced, and number of articles published in Nature and Science journals. But with this narrow focus comes drawbacks. China's priority was for its universities to 'catch up' on hard scientific research. So if you're looking for raw research power, it's the list for you. If you're a humanities student, or more interested in teaching quality? Not so much.
6. Ariel Zirulnick. "New world university ranking puts Harvard back on top". The Christian Science Monitor. Those two, as well as Shanghai Jiao Tong University, produce the most influential international university rankings out there
7. Indira Samarasekera & Carl Amrhein. "Top schools don't always get top marks". The Edmonton Journal. Archived from the original on October 3, 2010. There are currently three major international rankings that receive widespread commentary: The Academic World Ranking of Universities, the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education Rankings.
8. Philip G. Altbach (11 November 2010). "The State of the Rankings". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 27 January 2015. The major international rankings have appeared in recent months — the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE).
9. ""Shanghai Academic Ranking: a French Controversy" by Marc Goetzmann, for ''La Jeune Politique''". Lajeunepolitique.com. 29 August 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
10. "ARWU – Methodology". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
11. "A world of opportunity". The Economics. 8 September 2005. Retrieved 30 January 2015. It is no accident that the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities, the Shanghai index, is produced by a Chinese university.
12. "International Group Announces Audit of University Rankings". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 10 October 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2015. ...Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which produces the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities...
13. "Chinese study ranks world's top 500 universities". European Research Headlines. 2003. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
14. "Rankings and Accountability in Higher Education: Uses and Misuses". United Nations Educational. 2013. p. 26. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
15. Philip G. Altbach (11 September 2010). "The State of the Rankings". INSIDE HIGHER ED. Retrieved 30 January 2015. Nonetheless, AWRU's consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency are significant advantages.
16. "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2013 released". Times Higher Education (THE). Retrieved 2016-01-20.
17. J. Scott Armstrong and Tad Sperry (1994). "Business School Prestige: Research versus Teaching" (PDF). Energy & Environment. 18 (2): 13–43. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-20.
18. "1741-7015-5-30.fm" (PDF). Retrieved 9 June 2014.
19. Răzvan V. Florian (17 June 2007). "Irreproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities". Scientometrics. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
20. Domingo Docampo (1 July 2012). "Reproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities". Scientometrics. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
21. Jean-Charles Billaut, Denis Bouyssou & Philippe Vincke. "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking?". CCSD. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
22. ""Shanghai Academic Ranking: a French Controversy" by Marc Goetzmann, for ''La Jeune Politique''". Lajeunepolitique.com. 29 August 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
23. Spongenberg, Helena (5 June 2014). "EUobserver / EU to test new university ranking in 2010". Euobserver.com. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
24. Dagorn, Gary (16 August 2016). "Universités : pourquoi le classement de Shanghaï n'est pas un exercice sérieux" (in French). lemonde.fr. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
25. Gérand, Christelle (September 2016). "Aix-Marseille, laboratoire de la fusion des universités" (in French). www.monde-diplomatique.fr. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
26. "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2016". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
27. "Alternative Ranking 2014 ( Excluding Award Factor ) ( Excluding Award Factor )". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
28. "Alternative Ranking 2015 ( Excluding Award Factor )". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
29. "Academic Rankings of World Universities in subject fields". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
30. "Academic Rankings of World Universities in specific subjects". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
31. "Greater China Ranking – Methodology". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
32. "Greater China Rankings". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
33. "Macedonian HEIs Ranking 2013–2014 – Methodology". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
34. "Macedonian HEIs Ranking 2013–2014". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
35. "Macedonian HEIs Ranking 2011–2012". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

External links

• Academic Ranking of World Universities Website
• Interactive maps comparing the ARWU, Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings
• Jambor, Paul Z. 'The Changing Dynamics of PhDs and the Future of Higher Educational Development in Asia and the Rest of the World' Department of Education – The United States of America: Educational Resources Information Center, September 26, 2009 (Accessed in October, 2009)
• Csizmazia Roland A., Jambor, Paul Z. "Korean Higher Education on the Rise: Time to Learn From the Success – Comparative Research at the Tertiary Education Level", Human Resource Management Academic Research Society: International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development,Volume 3, Issue 2 (March, 2014)