When a new university ranking appears there is always a buzz (at least amongst those of us who are interested in these things), and the recent World’s Top Universities by Time certainly caused a buzz.
Like its competitors from Times Higher Education, QS and ARWU, it is heavily focused on a traditional academic powerhouse view of university excellence, putting it on well-travelled ground. Unfortunately that means it will instantly draw comparisons.
The methodology (which could certainly be a lot more transparent) is broken down into three areas: Academic Capacity and Performance (60 per cent), Innovation and Economic Impact (30 per cent), and Global Engagement (10 per cent).
The first and the last of these largely retread well-used (and often well-criticised) measures. Innovation and Economic Impact tries to take a different stance, with measures like MOOCs (very 2010) and website traffic. One notable difference overall is that, like ARWU, there is no direct measure of reputation. On the other hand, also like ARWU, they use proxies: Nobel Prizes (real ones) and Fields Medals.
However, the major challenge comes when we look at the results. Rather than going into detail on them, I thought it would be fun to explore who is likely to be happy or unhappy with the results.
Happy
- Hong Kong. The SAR’s universities beat mainland China.
- The UK. Significantly over-represented in the top 100, and especially in the global impact measure, where it has 17 of the top 20 universities. The vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton will be raising a glass of champagne. Another victory for UK Higher Education.
- Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Finally getting ahead of the National University of Singapore.
- Switzerland. Performing strongly.
- Rice University. A score difference of 0.08 has kept it two places above Toronto. Formula 1 qualifying levels of difference count.
Unhappy
- Peking University. It really should be somewhere near Tsinghua University, not in the 300s.
- India. To be fair, India consistently believes that global rankings undervalue its institutions (I come back to that here), but with only one ranked university, in the 400s, this won’t help.
- France. Its top university is Sorbonne Université, in 185th place. Maybe they should refocus their boycott away from THE.
- Nanyang Tech. Yes, it is above NUS, but far lower than it might expect.
- University of Toronto. Just 0.08 behind Rice, but two positions lower on the grid.
Room for something different
There is always space for new rankings, and it’s possible that this one will settle down after a few iterations. But I would have been more interested if it had tried to approach higher education from a different perspective, like the THE Impact Rankings or Newsweek’s America’s Best Colleges for Women.
First published on LinkedIn.
