arwu 2005

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Academic Ranking of World Universities

cademic Ranking of World Universities

ARWU)

ARWU)

February 16, 2006February 16, 2006

By Professor Nian Cai LiuBy Professor Nian Cai Liu

Institute of Higher Education and Center for WorldInstitute of Higher Education and Center for World--Class UniversitiesClass Universities

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ChinaShanghai Jiao Tong University, China

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Outline

Purposes of ARWU

Methodologies of ARWU

Results of ARWU

Problems with ARWU

Future Efforts of ARWU

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Purposes of ARWU

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Dream of Chinese for WCU

WCU is a dream for generations of Chinese.

It’s not only for pride, but also for the future

of China.

Recently, Chinese government has launched

several initiatives for research universities.

The best-known one is specially designed to

build WCU.

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Extra Funding in 985 Project (2001-2003)

Institution Funding (Billion RMB)

Peking Univ.

Tsinghua Univ.1.8

Fudan Univ.

Nanjing Univ.

Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ.

Zhejiang Univ.

1.2-1.4

Univ. Sci. Tech. China (CAS)

Xi’an Jiao Tong Univ. (Shanxi)

Harbin Inst. Tech. Heilongjiang)

0.9-1.0

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Goals of Top Chinese Universities

Many top Chinese universities have setup

their strategic goals as WCU.

Most of them has also set a time table for

reaching the goal of WCU. For example:

2016 for Peking University

2020 for Tsinghua University

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Questions About WCU

Is there a clear definition for WCU?

Are there any common characteristics for WCU?

How many WCU should there be in the world?

What are the positions of Chinese universities in

the world?

How can Chinese universities improve

themselves to reach the goal of WCU?

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Characteristics of WCU

There is no clear definition for WCU. Nevertheless,there seem be to common characteristics:

Top departments/programs of the world

Excellent research of international standard

Best professors and students from the world

Academic freedom and atmosphere of innovation

Adequate financial resources and facilities

Excellent leadership and effective governance

------

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Ranking of World Universities

Our original purpose of doing the AcademicRanking of World Universities (ARWU) was to find

out the position of Chinese universities in the

world and the gap between them and WCU.

ARWU was put on the internet upon on the

encouragement of colleagues from all over the

world. There have been more than 2,000,000

visitors since 2003, an average of 2000 every day.

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Features of ARWU

It’s done for pure academic interests, without

any external support. It has nothing to do

with any commercial activities.

Only non-subjective indicators and

internationally comparable data that everyone

could verify in some way were used.

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Cautions About Ranking

The quality of universities may not be preciselymeasured by mere numbers.

The quality of world universities may not be

accurately compared because of the huge

differences of various types of universities in

different countries.

The choice of indicators and their weights make

significant differences to the final ranking

results.

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Methodologies of ARWU

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Selection of Universities

Any university that has any Nobel Laureates, FieldsMedals, Highly Cited Researchers, or papers published

in Nature or Science.

Major universities of every country with significant

amount of papers indexed by SCIE, SSCI and AHCI.

Number of universities scanned: >2000

Number of universities actually ranked: >1000

Number of ranked universities on our web: 500

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Design of Ranking Criteria

It would be impossible to rank the quality of

education, administration, campus culture, and

national contribution etc.

We chose to rank universities worldwide by their

academic or research performance, which is a

good indication of its international reputation.

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Ranking Criteria and Weights

Criteria Indicator Code Weight

Quality of

Education

Alumni of an institution winning Nobel

Prizes and Fields MedalsAlumni 10%

Staff of an institution winning Nobel

Prizes and Fields MedalsAward 20%

Quality of Faculty

Highly cited researchers in 21 broadsubject categories

HiCi 20%

Articles published in Nature and Science* N&S 20%

Research Output

Articles in SCIE SSCI and AHCI SCI 20%

Size of InstitutionAcademic performance with respect to

the size of an institutionSize 10%

Total 100%

For institutions specialized in humanities and social sciences such as London School of Economics,N&S is not considered, and the weight of N&S is relocated to other indicators.

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Scoring Procedures

For each indicator, the highest scoring institution is assigned

a score of 100, and other institutions are calculated as apercentage of the top score.

The distribution of data for each indicator is examined for

any significant distorting effect; standard statisticaltechniques are used to adjust the indicator if necessary.

Scores for each indicator are weighted to arrive at a finaloverall score for an institution. The highest scoring

institution is assigned a score of 100, and other institutionsare calculated as a percentage of the top score.

The scores are then placed in descending order. Aninstitution’s rank reflects the number of institutions that sit

above it.

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Definition of Indicator: Alumni

The total number of the alumni of an institution winning

Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals.

Alumni are defined as those who obtain bachelor,

Master’s or doctoral degrees from the institution.

Different weights are set according to the periods of

obtaining degrees. The weight is 100% for alumni of

1991-2000, 90% for alumni of 1981-1990, 80% for

alumni of 1971-1980, and so on.

If a person obtains more than one degrees from an

institution, the institution is considered once only.

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Definition of Indicator: Award

The total number of the staff of an institution winning Nobel prizes

in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics and Fields Medal inMathematics.

Staff is defined as those who work at an institution at the time of

winning the prize.

Different weights are set according to the periods of winning the

prizes. The weight is 100% for winners since 2001, 90% for

winners in 1991-2000, 80% for winners in 1981-1990, 70% for

winners in 1971-1980, and so on. If a winner is affiliated with more than one institution, each

institution is assigned the reciprocal of the number of institutions.

For Nobel prizes, if a prize is shared by more than one person,

weights are set for winners according to their proportion of prize.

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Definition of Indicator: HiCi

The number of highly cited researchers in 21 broad

subject categories in life sciences, medicine,

physical sciences, engineering and social sciences.

The definition of categories and detailed procedures

can be found at the website of Institute of Scientific

Information.

The total number of HiCi is about 5000, about 4000

of which is university staff.

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Definition of Indicator: N&S

The annual average number of articles published in

Nature and Science in the past five years.

To distinguish the order of author affiliation, a weight of100% is assigned for corresponding author, 50% for

first author (second author if the first author is the same

as corresponding author), 25% for the next author, and

10% for other authors.

Only publications of article type are considered.

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Definition of Indicator: SCI

Total number of articles indexed in ScienceCitation Index-expanded (SCIE), Social Science

Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities

indices (AHCI) in the past year.

A weight of 2 is assigned to articles indexed in

SSCI and AHCI to compensate the bias against

humanities and social sciences.

Only publications of article type are considered.

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Definition of Indicator: Size

The sub-total scores of the above five indicatorsdivided by the number of full-time equivalent

academic staff.

If the number of academic staff for institutions of acountry cannot be obtained, the total scores of the

above five indicators is used.

For ranking 2005, the number of full-time equivalent

academic staff is obtained for institutions in USA,

China, Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and

Belgium etc.

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Main Sources of Data

Nobel laureates:

http://www.nobel.se

Fields Medals:

http://www.mathunion.org/medals/ Highly cited researchers:

http://www.isihighlycited.com

Articles published in Nature and Science:http://www.isiknowledge.com

Articles indexed in SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI:

http://www.isiknowledge.com

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Results of ARWU

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Top 500 Universities by Region

Region Top 20 Top 100 Top 200 Top 300 Top 400 Top 500

Americas 17 57 100 140 165 198

Europe 2 35 79 123 168 205

Asia-

Pacific1 8 23 36 65 93

Africas 1 2 4

Total 20 100 202 300 400 500

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Top 500 Universities by Country

Country Top 20 Top 100 Top 200 Top 300 Top 400 Top 500

1 United States 17 53 90 119 140 165

2 United Kingdom 2 11 14 30 36 40

3 Japan 1 5 9 13 24 34

4 Germany 5 16 23 33 40

5 Canada 4 8 17 19 23

6 France 4 8 13 19 21

7 Sweden 4 5 9 11 11

8 Switzerland 3 6 6 7 89 Netherlands 2 7 9 11 12

10 Australia 2 6 9 10 14

19 China 2 6 15 18

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Distribution of Total Score

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Distribution of Scores of Indicators

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Total

Score

Alumni

Score

Award

Score

HiCi

Score

N&S

Score

SCI

Score

Size

Score

Total Score 1.00

Alumni Score 0.80 1.00

Award Score 0.84 0.76 1.00

HiCi Score 0.90 0.60 0.65 1.00

N&S Score 0.93 0.67 0.70 0.86 1.00

SCI Score 0.81 0.55 0.50 0.68 0.74 1.00

Size Score 0.83 0.68 0.73 0.70 0.77 0.56 1.00

Pearson Coefficients

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Performance of Selected Universities

Range of

UniversitiesTop 20 21-100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500

Peking

(200-300)

Tsinghua

(150-200)

Average No. of

Alumni8.5 1.6 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.5

Average No. of

Award4.4 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Average No. of

HiCi56.5 13.6 5.3 2.3 1.0 0.8 0.0 0.0

Average No. ofN&S

27.6 6.7 2.7 1.5 0.7 0.4 1.0 0.8

Average No. of

SCI4300 2400 1600 1100 800 600 2500 2800

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Problems with ARWU

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Methodological: Social Sciences

Many well-known institutions specialized in humanities

and social sciences are ranked relatively low.

Nevertheless, if a university specialized in social sciences

and humanities had Nobel Laureates in economics and

Highly Cited Researchers in social sciences, it should havegood standing.

Since 2004, the indicator of N&S is not considered for

institutions specialized in humanities and social sciences,its weight is relocated to other indicators.

Since 2005, a weight of 2 for articles indexed by SSCI and

AHCI is considered.

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Methodological: Language Bias

English is the language of international academic

community.

Any ranking based on academic performance willbe biased towards institutions in English-

speaking countries.

Possible solution: papers published in non-native

languages are offered a special weight.

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Methodological: Award and Alumni

Universities started after the 1911 do not have a fair

chance.

Disciplines not related to the awarding fields do not

have a fair chance. Other important awards include

Abel, Pulitzer, Turing, Tyler, etc.

Institutions for winning awards and those for doing

the researches may not be the same.

Institutions for obtaining degrees and those for

pursuing the studies may not be the same.

Postdoctoral training is not considered.

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Methodological: Per Capita Performance

The weight of the Size indicator for per capitaperformance is rather low. Large institutions have

relatively high positions in the ranking.

However, it’s very difficult to obtain internationallycomparable data on the number of academic staff .

The types of academic staff: such as purely teaching

staff, teaching and research staff, purely research staff.

The ranks of academic staff: such as professor, associate

professor, reader, lecturer, instructor, scientist etc.

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Technical: Attributions

Many universities have more than one commonly usednames: such as Virginia Tech and Virginia Polytechnic and

State University.

Variations due to translation: such as Univ Koln and UnivCologne, Univ Vienna and Univ Wien.

Abbreviated names: such as ETH Zurich for Swiss Federal

Institute of Technology Zurich.

Some authors only write their departmental or institute

name without mentioning their university name.

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Technical: Definition of Institution

University systems: such as Univ Californiasystem, Univ London system.

Affiliated institutions and research organizations:

such as Ecole Polytechnique Montreal (affiliated

to University of Montreal), CNRS Labs (affiliated

to French universities).

Teaching and affiliated Hospitals: complex!

Our answer: according to author’s expression.

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Other Technical Problems

Merging, splitting, inheriting, discontinuing, name-

changing of institutions such as:

Univ Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa merged from Univ

Natal and Univ Durban-Westville.

University of Innsbruck in Austria splitted into Univ

Innsbruck and Innsbruck Medical Univ.

Humboldt Univ Berlin and Free Univ Berlin inheriting the

Nobel Prizes of the Berlin University before world war II.

Vrjie Universiteit Brussel and Universite Libre Bruxelles

share the same English name of Free University of

Brussels.

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Future Efforts for ARWU

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Future Efforts

Study all the above mentioned problems andcontinuously improve the ranking methodologies.

Establish more comprehensive databases of WCU.

Update ARWU annually (in August) .

Provide ranking of broad subject areas such asphysical sciences, social sciences, life sciences,

clinical medicine, and engineering etc.

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Future Efforts (Cont’ed)

Provide ranking of universities specialized or

oriented in engineering, medicine, etc. based on

the scientific classification of world universities.

Provide ranking with a much higher weight of

the Size indicator once internationally

comparable data on the number of academic

staff were obtained.

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Thank you very muchfor your attention!

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/en/

arwu 2005

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