Academic Ranking of World Universities

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, making it the first global university ranking with multifarious indicators.[1][2]

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 including English & Chinese
Website	www.shanghairanking.com

Since 2009, ARWU has been published and copyrighted annually by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, an independent organization focusing on higher education.[3] In 2011, a board of international advisory consisting of scholars and policy researchers was established to provide suggestions.[4][5] The publication currently includes global league tables for institutions and a whole and for a selection of individual subjects, alongside independent regional Greater China Ranking and Macedonian HEIs Ranking.

ARWU is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely observed university rankings, alongside QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] It has received positive feedback for its objectivity and methodology,[10][11][12] but draws wide criticism as it fails to adjust for the size of the institution, and thus larger institutions tend to rank above smaller ones.[9][13][14]

Global rankings

Methodology

ARWU methodology[15]

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

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."[16] In 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education called ARWU "the best-known and most influential global ranking of universities".[17] EU Research Headlines reported the ARWU's work on 31 December 2003: "The universities were carefully evaluated using several indicators of research performance."[18] 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.[19] Philip G. Altbach named ARWU's 'consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency' as significant strengths.[20] While ARWU has originated in China, the ranking have been praised for being unbiased towards Asian institutions, especially Chinese institutions.[21]

Criticism

The ranking has been criticised for "relying too much on award factors" thus undermining the importance of quality of instruction and humanities.[9][22][23][24] 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.[25] A 2013 paper in the same journal finally showed how the Shanghai ranking results could be reproduced.[26] 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.[27] 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[28][29] and the unreasonable weight given to research often performed decades ago.[30] It is also criticised in France for its use as a motivation for merging universities into larger ones.[31] Indeed, a further criticism has been that the metrics used are not independent of university size, e.g. number of publications or award winners will mechanically add as universities are grouped, independently of research (or teaching) quality; thus a merger between two equally-ranked institutions will significantly increase the merged institutions’ score and give it a higher ranking, without any change in quality.[14]

Results

Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2003-2018, Top ten

Academic Ranking of World Universities (500) – Top 50[32][Note 2]

Institution	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
Harvard University	1	1	1	1	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	2	2	2	2
University of Cambridge	5	3	2	2	4	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	3	3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	3	3	4	3	3	5	4	4	4	4
University of California, Berkeley	4	4	4	4	3	3	3	2	4	4	3	4	4	3	5	5	5	5
Princeton University	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
Columbia University	10	9	7	7	7	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	8	9	8	8	8	7
California Institute of Technology	3	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	7	7	8	9	9	9	8
University of Oxford	9	8	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	9	10	7	7	7	7	9
University of Chicago	11	10	9	8	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	10	10	10	10	10
Yale University	8	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	12	11	11
Cornell University	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	13	13	13	13	13	13	14	12	13	12
University of California, Los Angeles	15	16	14	14	13	13	13	13	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	11	11	13
Paris-Saclay University	72	48	61	64	52	49	43	45	40	37	39	42	41	46	41	42	37	14
Johns Hopkins University	24	22	19	20	19	20	19	18	18	17	17	17	16	16	18	18	16	15
University of Washington	16	20	17	17	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	15	15	15	13	14	14	16
University College London	20	25	26	26	25	22	21	21	20	21	21	20	18	17	16	17	15	16
University of California, San Diego	14	13	13	13	14	14	14	14	15	15	14	14	14	14	15	15	18	18
University of Pennsylvania	18	15	15	15	15	15	15	15	14	14	15	16	17	18	17	16	17	19
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich	25	27	27	27	27	24	23	23	23	23	20	19	20	19	19	19	19	20
University of California, San Francisco	13	17	18	18	18	18	18	18	17	18	18	18	18	21	21	21	20	21
University of Michigan	21	19	21	21	21	21	22	22	22	22	23	22	22	23	24	27	20	22
University of Toronto	23	24	24	24	23	24	27	27	26	27	28	24	25	27	23	23	24	23
Washington University in St. Louis	22	28	28	28	28	29	29	30	31	31	32	32	32	23	20	20	22	23
Imperial College London	17	23	23	23	23	27	26	26	24	24	24	22	23	22	27	24	23	25
University of Tokyo	19	14	20	19	20	19	20	20	21	20	21	21	21	20	24	22	25	26
Duke University	32	31	32	31	32	32	31	35	35	36	31	31	31	25	26	26	28	27
New York University	55	32	29	29	30	31	32	31	29	27	27	27	27	29	29	32	30	27
Tsinghua University	201-250	202-301	153-202	151-200	151-202	201-302	201-302	151-200	151-200	151-200	151-200	101-150	101-150	58	48	45	43	29
Northwestern University	29	30	31	33	29	30	30	29	30	30	30	28	27	26	22	25	29	30
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	52	56	55	59	58	38	39	41	42	41	43	36	39	35	33	30	33	30
University of Wisconsin–Madison	27	18	16	16	17	17	17	17	19	19	19	24	24	28	28	28	27	32
University of Copenhagen	65	59	57	56	46	45	43	40	43	44	42	39	35	30	30	29	26	33
Kyoto University	30	21	22	22	22	23	24	24	27	26	26	26	26	32	35	35	32	34
University of Melbourne	92	82	82	78	79	73	75	62	60	57	54	44	44	40	39	38	41	35
PSL University	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	36
University of Manchester	89	78	53	50	48	40	41	44	38	40	41	38	41	35	38	34	33	36
University of British Columbia	35	36	37	36	36	35	36	36	37	39	40	37	40	34	31	43	35	38
Sorbonne University	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	36	44	39
University of Minnesota	37	33	32	32	33	28	28	28	28	29	29	30	30	33	34	37	41	40
University of Texas at Austin	47	40	36	39	38	39	38	38	35	35	36	39	37	44	51	40	45	41
University of Edinburgh	43	47	47	52	53	55	53	54	53	51	51	45	47	41	32	32	31	42
Rockefeller University	28	29	30	30	30	32	32	34	33	32	34	33	33	37	36	30	35	43
University of Colorado Boulder	31	34	35	34	34	34	34	32	32	33	33	34	34	38	43	38	38	44
Karolinska Institute	39	46	45	48	53	51	50	42	44	42	44	47	48	44	44	44	38	45
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign	45	25	25	25	26	26	25	25	25	25	25	28	29	30	37	41	38	45
King's College London	75	77	80	83	83	81	65	63	68	68	67	59	55	50	46	56	51	47
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas	34	36	38	38	39	41	48	49	51	48	46	45	44	43	48	48	49	48
Peking University	251-300	202-301	203-300	201-300	203-304	201-302	201-302	151-200	201-300	151-200	151-200	101-150	101-150	71	71	57	53	49
University of California, Santa Barbara	26	35	34	35	35	36	35	32	33	34	35	41	38	42	45	46	48	49

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 10[Note 2]

Institution	2014[33]	2015[34]
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.

Natural Sciences [35]	Engineering	Life Sciences	Medical Sciences	Social Sciences
Atmospheric Science	Aerospace Engineering	Agricultural Sciences	Clinical Medicine	Business Administration
Chemistry	Automation & Control	Biological Sciences	Dentistry & Oral Sciences	Communication
Earth Sciences	Biomedical Engineering	Human Biological Sciences	Medical Technology	Economics
Ecology	Biotechnology	Veterinary Sciences	Nursing	Education
Geography	Chemical Engineering		Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences	Finance
Mathematics	Civil Engineering		Public Health	Hospitality & Tourism Management
Oceanography	Computer Science & Engineering			Law
Physics	Electrical & Electronic Engineering			Library & Information Science
	Energy Science & Engineering			Management
	Environmental Science & Engineering			Political Sciences
	Food Science & Technology			Psychology
	Instruments Science & Technology			Public Administration
	Marine/Ocean Engineering			Sociology
	Materials Science & Engineering			Statistics
	Mechanical Engineering
	Metallurgical Engineering
	Mining & Mineral Engineering
	Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
	Remote Sensing
	Telecommunication Engineering
	Transportation Science & Technology
	Water Resources

Regional rankings

Considering the development of specific areas, two independent regional league tables with different methodologies were launched - Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China and Best Chinese Universities Ranking.

Methodology

Methodology of Greater China Rankings[36][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][37]

Institution	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Tsinghua University	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Peking University	7	7	5	5	4	2	2	2	2
The Chinese University of Hong Kong	6	5	6	7	5	5	4	4	3
Zhejiang University	10	9	9	10	9	9	5	5	4
The University of Hong Kong	3	6	4	6	6	5	6	8	5
University of Science and Technology of China	9	11	10	8	8	4	7	6	6
Shanghai Jiao Tong University	15	12	12	12	12	10	8	7	7
Fudan University	16	10	11	11	10	12	9	10	8
National Tsing Hua University	4	3	3	2	2	3	3	3	9
National Taiwan University	1	2	2	3	3	7	9	9	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.

References

1. Pavel, Adina-Petruta (2015). "Global university rankings - a comparative analysis". Procedia Economics and Finance. 26: 54–63. doi:10.1016/S2212-5671(15)00838-2.
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3. "About Academic Ranking of World Universities". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2014. Since 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
4. "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.
5. "ARWU International Advisory Board". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
6. Network, QS Asia News (2018-03-02). "The history and development of higher education ranking systems - QS WOWNEWS". QS WOWNEWS. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
7. "About Academic Ranking of World Universities | About ARWU". www.shanghairanking.com. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
8. Ariel Zirulnick (2010-09-16). "New world university ranking puts Harvard back on top". Christian Science Monitor. Those two, as well as Shanghai Jiao Tong University, produce the most influential international university rankings out there
9. 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.
10. 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).
11. "Strength and weakness of varsity rankings". NST Online. 2016-09-14. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
12. Marszal, Andrew (2012-10-04). "University rankings: which world university rankings should we trust?". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
13. ""Shanghai Academic Ranking: a French Controversy" by Marc Goetzmann, for La Jeune Politique". Lajeunepolitique.com. 29 August 2013. Archived from the original on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
14. Bahram Bekhradnia (15 December 2016). "International university rankings: For good or ill?" (PDF). Higher Education Policy Institute. p. 16. Retrieved 10 June 2017. ARWU presents a further data issue. Whereas in the case of the other rankings the results are adjusted to take account of the size of institutions, hardly any such adjustment is made by ARWU. So there is a distortion in favour of large institutions. If two institutions were to merge, the very fact of merger would mean that the merged institution would do nearly twice as well as either of the individual institutions prior to merger, although nothing else had changed.
15. "ARWU – Methodology". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
16. "A world of opportunity". The Economics. 8 September 2005. Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. 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.
17. "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...
18. "Chinese study ranks world's top 500 universities". European Research Headlines. 2003. Archived from the original on 2015-01-09. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
19. Rankings and Accountability in Higher Education: Uses and Misuses. United Nations Educational. 2013. p. 26. ISBN 9789230011567. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
20. 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.
21. "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2013 released". Times Higher Education (THE). 2013-08-15. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
22. Marszal, Andrew (2015). "University rankings: which world university rankings should we trust?". The Telegraph. 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.
23. 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.
24. "1741-7015-5-30.fm" (PDF). Retrieved 9 June 2014.
25. Răzvan V. Florian (17 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. S2CID 8239194.
26. Domingo Docampo (1 July 2012). "Reproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities". Scientometrics. 94 (2): 567–587. doi:10.1007/s11192-012-0801-y. S2CID 938534.
27. Jean-Charles Billaut, Denis Bouyssou & Philippe Vincke. "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking?". CCSD. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
28. ""Shanghai Academic Ranking: a French Controversy" by Marc Goetzmann, for La Jeune Politique". Lajeunepolitique.com. 29 August 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
29. Spongenberg, Helena (5 June 2014). "EUobserver / EU to test new university ranking in 2010". Euobserver.com. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
30. Dagorn, Gary (16 August 2016). "Universités : pourquoi le classement de Shanghaï n'est pas un exercice sérieux". Le Monde.fr (in French). lemonde.fr. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
31. Gérand, Christelle (September 2016). "Aix-Marseille, laboratoire de la fusion des universités" (in French). www.monde-diplomatique.fr. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
32. "ARWU World University Rankings 2019 | Academic Ranking of World Universities 2019 | Top 1000 universities | Shanghai Ranking - 2019". www.shanghairanking.com. Retrieved 2020-04-14.
33. "Alternative Ranking 2014 ( Excluding Award Factor ) ( Excluding Award Factor )". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
34. "Alternative Ranking 2015 ( Excluding Award Factor )". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
35. "Global Rankings of Academic Subjects 2020". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2020. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
36. "Greater China Ranking – Methodology". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
37. "Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China - 2019". www.shanghairanking.com. Retrieved 2020-05-06.

External links

• Official website
• 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,