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

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.

Regional rankings

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

Greater China

Methodology

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

Results

Notes

References

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)

University ranking systems
Global	Academic Ranking of World Universities CWTS Leiden Ranking Global University Ranking Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities QS World University Rankings Round University Ranking Times Higher Education World University Rankings University Ranking by Academic Performance U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
Regional	European Union Latin America
National	Australia Excellence in Research for Australia Brazil Canada Maclean's China Wu Shulian CUAA Netbig Germany India Japan Going broke universities – Disappearing universities Truly Strong Universities Mexico ECUM Pakistan Russia South Africa United Kingdom United States Center for Measuring University Performance Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index The Princeton Review U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking Washington Monthly What Will They Learn?
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