Comparing prominent league tables

Useful league table overview article by Gavin Moodie

A nice piece this which offers a good overview of international rankings. For example:

Of the various ratings of institutions idealists prefer the approach pioneered in Germany by the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung or Centre for Higher Education Development – CHE. In 1998 the centre launched a well designed web tool of the its university ranking. This is directed to students, allowing them to enter their preferences such as a law course with high teaching evaluations in a university with a strong sports programme. The tool shows all the programmes that meet the parameters entered by the inquirer, with each rated in the top, middle or bottom group on each of the criteria chosen.

via University World News.

Also covers SJTU, THE and the wonderful and bizarre table from the École des Mines de Paris, covered in a previous post.

Another top 100 global universities ranking

A league table with a slightly different emphasis


Top 10 of the Top 100 Global universities ranking:

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

2 California Institute of Technology, USA

3 University of Tokyo, Japan

4 Columbia University, USA

5 Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

6 Harvard University, USA

7 Stanford University, USA

8 University of Cambridge, UK

9 Johns Hopkins University, USA

10 University of Chicago, USA

via Top 100 Global universities ranking.

Some of the places in the top 100 are filled by Russian institutions which tend not to feature so prominently in other global league tables. The methodology seems to be based on the views of a panel of experts but is pretty opaque. Having said that, many of the universities in the 100 are the same as in the SJTU and THE tables.

Suspect this one won’t catch on.

“Top scholars should lead research universities”

Top scholars should lead research universities:

Review of fascinating new work in University World News.

Research universities should be led by brilliant scholars and not merely talented managers, says Warwick University fellow Amanda Goodall. It is not sufficient for leaders to have management skills alone, Goodall states in a new book. In Socrates in the Boardroom: why research universities should be led by top scholars, Goodall challenges the orthodoxy of “managerialism” which began in the Thatcher era and continued during the Blair decade. Using a mix of empirical research of 100 universities and interviews with 26 of their leaders in the UK and the US, she concludes that institutions led by highly regarded academics perform better.

Goodall gives four reasons why leaders should be able scholars. They are more credible to academic colleagues and appear more legitimate which, in turn, extends a leader’s power and influence. A top scholar provides a leader with a deep understanding and expert knowledge about the core business of universities which informs decision-making and strategic priorities. The leader sets the quality threshold: “The standard bearer has first set the standard that is to be enforced.” Finally, she says a leader who is a researcher sends a signal to the faculty that he or she shares their scholarly values, and that research success is important to the institution. It also transmits an external signal to potential job candidates, donors, alumni and students.

Some choice quotations here too:

When Goodall asked Patrick Harker, University of Delaware President, if non-academics could lead research universities, he replied: “To be the leader of a jazz group you have to be able to play. That is true of higher education as well. You might not be in the classroom or laboratory now but it helps if you have been there.”

One UK vice-chancellor told her: “A successful international businessman should be appointed as CEO into an international business. An editor of the Financial Times will have been a competent journalist. A vice-chancellor of a university must have been an academic to understand the culture. Universities are profoundly intellectual and can only be led by an academic.”

Have bought a copy now and look forward to reading it!

World’s Best Universities: Another Top 200

World’s Best Universities: Top 200 from US News and World Report

Slighly misleading this as is the same league table as previously published by THE.

What is a little more interesting is that, from next year, THE will be using a different compiler but QS will, it seems, be continuing to partner with US News. Therefore there are going to be three international league tables in 2010. Meantime, the top 25 is as follows:

1 Harvard University (1 in 2008)
2 University of Cambridge (3)
3 Yale University (2)
4 University College London (7)
5= Imperial College London (6)
5= University of Oxford (4)
7 University of Chicago (8)
8 Princeton University (12)
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (9)
10 California Institute of Technology (5)
11 Columbia University (10)
12 University of Pennsylvania (11)
13 Johns Hopkins University (13=)
14 Duke University (13=)
15 Cornell University (15)
16 Stanford University (17)
17 Australian National University (16)
18 McGill University (20)
19 University of Michigan (18)
20= Eth Zurich (24)
20= University of Edinburgh (23)
22 University of Tokyo (19)
23 King’s College London (22)
24 University of Hong Kong (26)
25 Kyoto University (25)

Shanghai Jaio Tong league table: Field Rankings

World league table: Field rankings

Following the publication of the World League Table, the ARWU Field rankings have been released. These are the companion tables to the overall world rankings produced by the team at SJTU and highlight relative standings in five broad discipline areas:

Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Engineering/Technology and Computer Science
Life and Agriculture Sciences
Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy
Social Sciences

As in 2008 the University of Nottingham does rather well in three of these tables: top 30 in Clinical Medicine and Phamacy, Top 75 in Agricultural and Life Sciences, and the world’s Top 100 universities in the Social Sciences.

Shanghai Jiao Tong World Ranking 2009

2009 Shanghai Jiao Tong University League Table just published….

The latest SJTU rankings for 2009 have now been published.

Harvard is again top as in 2007 and 2008, and Cambridge remains in 4th position and top from the UK. Top 20 as follows:

1 Harvard University
2 Stanford University
3 University of California – Berkeley
4 University of Cambridge
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
6 California Institute of Technology
7 Columbia University
8 Princeton University
9 University of Chicago
10 University of Oxford
11 Yale University
12 Cornell University
13 University of California – Los Angeles
14 University of California – San Diego
15 University of Pennsylvania
16 University of Washington – Seattle
17 Univ Wisconsin – Madison
18 University of California – San Francisco
19 Johns Hopkins University
20  Tokyo University

Note that the Top 18 are identical to 2008.

UK universities appear in the top 100 as follows (change from last year in brackets):

4 Cambridge (no change)
10 Oxford (no change)
21 UCL (up 1)
26 Imperial (down 1)
41 Manchester (down 1)
53 Edinburgh (up 2)
61 Bristol (no change)
65 King’s London (up 16)
81 Sheffield (down 4)
83 Nottingham (down 1)
94= Birmingham (down 3)

No other UK institutions feature in the Shanghai Jiao Tong world 100.

Europe’s “best universities”

CHE Excellence Ranking 2009

A league table that isn’t actually a league table: via “European best universities” – ZEIT ONLINE

The CHE Excellence Ranking compares a selected group of European universities for each subject. Find the most interesting places in Europe for doing your master’s or doctoral degree!

For seven different subjects a group of 20 to 60 European universities were selected by their results in research and (for Political Science, Economics and Psychology) internationalisation indicators. This selected group of universities is called the “Excellence Group” of the respective subject. For this Excellence Groups, an institutional survey as well as a student survey was conducted. For outstanding results in any one indicator, a “star” was awarded.

Interesting approach this. Not sure that it will take off but it is a serious effort and worth watching. Also. gratifying that the University of Nottingham appears in both the Economics and Politics lists but unfortunately they seem to have failed to notice psychology.

Economist MBA league table

Full-time MBA ranking from The Economist.

The latest FT MBA league table has been published and it includes very strong representation from European Schools:

1 IESE Business School – University of Navarra Spain
2 IMD – International Institute for Management Development Switzerland
3 California at Berkeley, University of – Haas School of Business United States
4 Chicago, University of – Booth School of Business United States
5 Harvard Business School United States
6 Dartmouth College – Tuck School of Business United States
7 Stanford Graduate School of Business United States
8 London Business School Britain
9 Pennsylvania, University of – Wharton School United States
10 Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Belgium
11 Cambridge, University of – Judge Business School Britain
12 York University – Schulich School of Business Canada
13 New York University – Leonard N Stern School of Business United States
14 HEC School of Management, Paris France
15 Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management United States
16 IE Business School Spain
17 Melbourne Business School – University of Melbourne Australia
18 Cranfield School of Management Britain
19 Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT Sloan School of Management United States
20 Columbia Business School United States
21 Henley Business School Britain
22 Warwick Business School Britain
23 INSEAD France / Singapore
24 Virginia, University of – Darden Graduate School of Business Administration United States
25 Michigan, University of – Stephen M. Ross School of Business United States

The Economist methodology is a bit different from the mainstream league tables and includes a significant student and graduate survey component:

Business school rankings are not perfect. What makes a good MBA programme will vary for each individual. Our ethos is to look at business schools from the students’ perspective. Indeed, over the past 21 years we have asked close to 150,000 of them why they decided to sign up for an MBA. It is their responses that inform the criteria we measure and the weightings we apply.

Over that time, four factors have consistently emerged: to open new career opportunities and/or further current career; personal development and educational experience; to increase salary; the potential to network. The Economist ranks full-time programmes on their ability to deliver to students the things that they themselves cite as most important. It weights each element according to the average importance given to it by students surveyed over the past five years.

Most Cited Institutions: 1999-2009

A league table of the most cited institutions 1999-2009 has been published by ScienceWatch.com

The list is dominated by US universities with 14 entries and only three UK entries and one each from Germany, Canada and Japan. Harvard is, inevitably, top:

These institutions all produce a high volume of papers resulting in extremely high citation counts—the top six institutions have over one million citations to their credit, and cite counts for the remaining 14 are all well over a half-million.

Perhaps not that startling a table but nevertheless interesting

1 HARVARD UNIV
2 MAX PLANCK SOCIETY
3 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV
4 UNIV WASHINGTON
5 STANFORD UNIV
6 UNIV CALIF LOS ANGELES
7 UNIV MICHIGAN
8 UNIV CALIF BERKELEY
9 UNIV CALIF SAN FRANCISCO
10 UNIV PENN
11 UNIV TOKYO
12 UNIV CALIF SAN DIEGO
13 UNIV TORONTO
14 UCL
15 COLUMBIA UNIV
16 YALE UNIV
17 MIT
18 UNIV CAMBRIDGE
19 UNIV OXFORD
20 UNIV WISCONSIN

The listing of the top 20 institutions which attracted the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals over all 22 fields in the database. These institutions are the top 20 out of a pool of 4,050 institutions comprising the top 1% ranked by total citation count over all fields.

More details are on the website.

UK universities in 2009 THE world league table

Follow up to earlier post on the latest THE world league table.

There are 18 UK universities in the latest THE/QS world university league table with most improving their positions and Leeds being a new entry:

2 Cambridge
4 UCL
5= Oxford
5= Imperial
20= Edinburgh
23 King’s
26 Manchester
34 Bristol
58 Warwick
66 Birmingham
67= LSE
70 York
79 Glasgow
82 Sheffield
87= St Andrews
91 University of Nottingham
95= Southampton
99 Leeds

General take on this in THE and the Guardian is that the US is slipping, UK is holding its own (apart from Oxford) but Asian universities are catching up fast.