Academic Ranking of World Universities

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as Shanghai Ranking, is an annual publication of university rankings by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy based in China. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2003, the first global ranking with multifarious indicators, after which a board of international advisories was established to provide suggestions. 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. It is praised for its objective methodology but draws some condemnation for narrowly focussing on raw research power, undermining humanities and quality of instruction.

Global rankings

Overall

Methodology

ARWU methodology

Criterion	Indicator	Code	Weighting	Source
Quality of education	Alumni as Nobel laureates & Fields Medalists	Alumni	10%	Official websites of Nobel Laureates & Fields Medalists
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 Thomson Reuters' survey of highly cited researchers
Research output	Papers published in Nature and Science 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%	--
*

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." In 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education called ARWU "the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities". EU Research Headlines reported the ARWU's work on 31 December 2003: "The universities were carefully evaluated using several indicators of research performance." 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. Philip G. Altbach named ARWU's 'consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency' as significant strengths.

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. 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. A 2013 paper in the same journal finally showed how the Shanghai ranking results could be reproduced. 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. 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.

Results

Academic Ranking of World Universities (500) – Top 50

Institution	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Harvard University	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
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	4	3	3
University of California, Berkeley	4	4	4	4	3	3	3	2	4	4	3	4	4
University of Cambridge	5	3	2	2	4	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5
Princeton University	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6	6
California Institute of Technology	3	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	7	7
Columbia University	10	9	7	7	7	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	8
University of Chicago	11	10	9	8	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9
University of Oxford	9	8	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	9	10
Yale University	8	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11
University of California, Los Angeles	15	16	14	14	13	13	13	13	12	12	12	12	12
Cornell University	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	13	13	13	13	13
University of California, San Diego	14	13	13	13	14	14	14	14	15	15	14	14	14
University of Washington	16	20	17	17	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	15	15
Johns Hopkins University	24	22	19	20	19	20	19	18	18	17	17	17	16
University of Pennsylvania	18	15	15	15	15	15	15	15	14	14	15	16	17
University College London	20	25	26	26	25	22	21	21	20	21	21	20	18
University of California, San Francisco	13	17	18	18	18	18	18	18	17	18	18	18	18
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich	25	27	27	27	27	24	23	23	23	23	20	19	20
University of Tokyo	19	14	20	19	20	19	20	20	21	20	21	21	21
University of Michigan	21	19	21	21	21	21	22	22	22	22	23	22	22
Imperial College London	17	23	23	23	23	27	26	26	24	24	24	22	23
University of Wisconsin - Madison	27	18	16	16	17	17	17	17	19	19	19	24	24
University of Toronto	23	24	24	24	23	24	27	27	26	27	28	24	25
Kyoto University	30	21	22	22	22	23	24	24	27	26	26	26	26
New York University	55	32	29	29	30	31	32	31	29	27	27	27	27
Northwestern University	29	30	31	33	29	30	30	29	30	30	30	28	28
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	45	25	25	25	26	26	25	25	25	25	25	28	29
University of Minnesota	37	33	32	32	33	28	28	28	28	29	29	30	30
Duke University	32	31	32	31	32	32	31	35	35	36	31	31	31
Washington University in St. Louis	22	28	28	28	28	29	29	30	31	31	32	32	32
Rockefeller University	28	29	30	30	30	32	32	34	33	32	34	33	33
University of Colorado at Boulder	31	34	35	34	34	34	34	32	32	33	33	34	34
University of Copenhagen	65	59	57	56	46	45	43	40	43	44	42	39	35
Pierre and Marie Curie University	65	41	46	45	39	42	40	39	41	42	37	35	36
The University of Texas at Austin	47	40	36	39	38	39	38	38	35	35	36	39	37
University of California, Santa Barbara	26	35	34	35	35	36	35	32	33	34	35	41	38
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	52	56	55	59	58	38	39	41	42	41	43	36	39
University of British Columbia	35	36	37	36	36	35	36	36	37	39	40	37	40
University of Manchester	89	78	53	50	48	40	41	44	38	40	41	38	41
University of Paris-Sud	72	48	61	64	52	49	43	45	40	37	39	42	41
University of Maryland, College Park	75	57	47	37	37	37	37	36	38	38	38	43	43
University of Melbourne	92	82	82	78	79	73	75	62	60	57	54	44	44
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas	34	36	38	38	39	41	48	49	51	48	46	45	44
Heidelberg University	58	64	71	66	65	67	63	63	62	62	54	49	46
University of Edinburgh	43	47	47	52	53	55	53	54	53	51	51	45	47
Karolinska Institutet	39	46	45	48	53	51	50	42	44	42	44	47	48
University of Southern California	40	48	50	47	50	50	46	46	46	46	47	51	49
University of California, Irvine	44	55	47	44	45	46	46	46	48	45	45	47	50

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

Institution	2014	2015
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
Columbia University	12	11
University of Michigan	13	12
University of California, Los Angeles	11	13
University of California, San Francisco	15	14
The University of Tokyo	14	15
University of Pennsylvania	16	15
Cornell University	18	17
The Johns Hopkins University	19	18
University of Toronto	17	19
Princeton University	20	20
University College London	21	21
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich	23	22
Duke University	22	23
Imperial College, London	24	24
Northwestern University	25	25
University of Minnesota	26	26
University of Chicago	27	27
University of Wisconsin - Madison	28	28
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	29	29
The University of Texas at Austin	34	30
University of California, Davis	31	30
University of Copenhagen	40	30
Washington University in St. Louis	30	30
New York University	32	34
University of British Columbia	33	35
Pennsylvania State University	35	36
The University of Melbourne	39	37
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	38	38
Kyoto University	36	39
University of Colorado at Boulder	37	40
The Ohio State University, Columbus	41	41
University of Maryland, College Park	42	42
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Campus	43	43
Pierre and Marie Curie University	45	44
University of Queensland	58	45
McGill University	51	46
KU Leuven	59	47
University of California, Santa Cruz	50	47
Ghent University	53	49
Heidelberg University	63	49
University of California, Irvine	48	49

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	Specific subjects
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

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

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

Macedonia

Methodology

Methodology of rankings of Macedonian higher educational institutions

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

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

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)