The World University Rankings

Presentation at EPFL

• Martin Ince- Contributing editor, THES

Crans-Montana, Switzerland20 March 2006

The THES

• Since 1971

• Weekly newspaper formerly associated with The Times [of London]

• Group including TES

• Online at www.thes.co.uk since 1994

Why rank universities

• Interest in ranking things and people

- Hospitals

- Schools

- Local authorities

- Rich lists; Britain, world, Asians, footballers

- Universities: The Times

National Rankings

• The Times- produced by John O’Leary, editor of THES- Institutions as well as subjectsCriteria for subjects include:- Teaching quality- Research quality- Entry standards- Employability

National rankings (2)

• Criteria for institutions include- Teaching standards- Staff/student ratio- Library spending- Facilities spending - Good degrees- Jobs- Research

The US Comparison

• US News and World Report “America’s Best Colleges”

- Mainly about how likely you are to graduate

- Also student experience eg class size

- However, many other tables eg liberal arts, business, engineering colleges

- Likewise McLean’s et al

Why world rankings?

• Long overdue: higher education has always been very international

• Unique position of the THES

• Universities becoming more global

• Knowledge the real factor in international competitiveness

• Increasing desire for comparative information

Why world rankings (2)?

• GATS

• EU and Bologna

• 2 million students outside home country

• BTA

In addition

• Interest from governments – UK Treasury

• EU, Germany

• Shanghai

How to do it?

• Audience not just possible students

• Internationally mobile staff

• Internationally mobile money

- Focus on:

- Teaching

- Research

- International orientation

Peer review

• Peer review is the way academic value is measured

• We decided to make it the centrepiece of this ranking

• It is the least understood aspect of our work

• So here is the explanation

Peer review (2)

• We begin by assembling a peer review college of over 1,000 people

• Total 2,375 over two years

• International spread

• Subject spread

• Active academics

The question

• Online survey• The top universities in the topics they

know about- Arts and humanities- Social sciences- Science- Biomedicine- Technology

Plusses

• Simple

• Hard to cheat

• Understandable

• Robust

• Self-correcting if large enough sample

Minuses

• Biases include- Age- Size- Name

- Beijing- Loughborough

Audience conservatism

Employers

• Another group who know about university quality

• Innovation in 2005, not perfect

• Mainly private sector

• At 10 per cent of total

• Therefore academics cut from 50 to 40 per cent

• Tokyo problem

Quantitative measures

• Aim to measure universities in terms of

- Student commitment

- Research commitment

- International commitment

How to do this

• Extensive data gathering exercise

• Mainly by UK firm QS• Mix of data sources• National• Institutional• Direct contact

First quantitative criterion…

• Staff/student ratio

• Classic measure of commitment to teaching

• Poses some problems and issues

• 20 per cent of final score

How international?

• Two criteria rated at 5 per cent each

• Staff

• Students

- Again raises issues- Visiting scholars?- EU cross-border students?- Doing full courses?- Geography advantage

Citations

• Like peer review

• Classic measure of research quality

• Use ESI from Thomson

• Our consultant Evidence Ltd

Citations (2)

• Citations per staff member

• Not citations per paper

• Well-understood bias

- against non-English publication

- against arts and humanities

- against national-oriented topics

This accounts for the final 20 per cent

Comparison with Shanghai Jiao Tong

• Not a newspaper• Nobel + Fields prizes• These used twice• Science and Nature• Science and Social Science citations• Theirs is a unique and valuable effort• 500 rather than our 200

What did we find?

• Harvard

• The US – 54 in top 200

• MIT

• Harvard’s lead very large for second year

• But that’s only part of the story

Our vindication

• The top 200 includes universities in 31 states

• US, UK, Australia

• Korea, China, Japan

• Thailand, Malaysia

• Continental Europe

• Developing world (1 in 2004, 2 in 2005)

International commitment

• US shows up badly

• City University of Hong Kong

• London School of Economics, SOAS, and EPFL

• Yale among few US with international staff

• MIT for students

Peer review

• Harvard

• Oxford and Cambridge

• Well-liked universities all over the world

• Little evidence of patriotism bias

• US, UK, Australia, Japan, China, Singapore dominate the top 20

Employers

• Much smaller set, 333 people

• QS contacts or via universities

• Strongly correlated with peer review

• But well-liked universities in many countries

• Not strongly correlated with research

• Some specialist institutions have zero unemployment

Citations

• Medical faculty is a big plus

• Or major biomedical income

• CalTech the winner, then Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Texas

• Big country effect is at work here

Staff/student ratio

• Winner Ecole Polytechnique, France

• US, French, Swiss, Netherlands etc institutions all well placed

• Harvard shows badly here

• Asian and European universities well-placed

• Weak correlation with research – but not zero

Swiss universities in the 2005 rankings

• ETH 21, down 11 from 2004

• EPFL 34, down 2

• Zurich, Geneva 85 and 88

• Basel, Lausanne, St Gallen 127, 133, 150

• Berne 227

• All these big rises

….in detail

Peer review

- 173 in the world, down 63, 22/100

100 score was by Harvard

Employer review, 174 in the world

Staff and students

• QS discovered by direct contact with the university that you have:

• 53 per cent international staff

• 4 in world, ETH is 3

• 40 per cent international students

• 4 in world

Staff/student

• Here the ratio is 2.0

• 5 in the world, unusual

• Up 123 places

• Similar big rise by ETH

• First year effect?

Citations

• This score 23.7, low by Swiss standards

• Big fall

• Opposite side of coin from staff/student ratio

• 3rd Francophone institution, those also very low on citations

Things that don’t work

• Library spending

• Course cost

• Completion

• Entry standards

• Wealth

• Alumni giving

Response

• More work than writing the thing

• Last year about 30 newspaper articles in Mexico alone

• Interest from media, universities etc across Europe and Asia

• Less from the US

Types of response

• Who told you that?

• Reject the whole idea

• Complain about their position

• Think it is about right

• Wonder how to do better

How to do better

• Publish more in the right places

• Be more international

• Be better represented academically around the world

• Have better employer links

• Have enough staff to teach your students

The future

• Important for individuals

- Students

- Academics

The future (2)

• Important for governments

• Ireland, Malaysia, Switzerland…

• Important for business

• Important globally, eg for the EU

Future developments

• New data- Any suggestions?

Refine existing data, eg from employersMore global reach, eg AfricaNew analysesNew entrantsPrizes

And most importantly….

The book

• Planned for 2006

• 500 institutions including articles on the top group and shorter details on the rest

• Data in groups

…really the last slide

• Thanks to

John O’Leary, editor of The THES

Nunzio Quacquarelli, QS

Ben Sowter, QS

Jonathan Adams, Evidence Ltd

and their colleagues