Ranking Universities Worldwide

Posted on April 3, 2007  Comments (1)

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…

The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.

Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):

location Webometrics
Top 100
Jiao Tong
Top 101
% of World
Population
% of World GDP*
USA

53 54   4.6%   30.4%
Germany

10   5  1.3   6.3
Canada

  8   4  0.5   2.5
United Kingdom

  6 10  0.9   5.0
Australia

  3   2  0.3   1.6
Japan

  1   6 2.0 10.3
The rest of Europe

16 13
Brazil

  1   0   2.8   1.8
Mexico

  1   0   1.6   1.7
Israel

  0   1   0.1   0.3

* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)

Graphic of top 100 universities by country

Top 10 schools:

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)
  • Stanford University
  • Harvard University
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Penn State University
  • University of Michigan
  • Cornell University
  • University of Illinois
  • University of Wisconsin at Madison
  • University of Texas at Austin

The reports also includes the top 500 Research and Development Institutions:

  • National Institutes of Health – USA
  • NASA – USA
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – USA
  • US Geological Survey
  • US Environmental Protection Agency
  • Max Planck Gessellschaft – Germany
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – France
  • European Organization for Nuclear Research
  • World Wide Web consortium
  • Related: Asia – Rising Stars of Science and EngineeringDiplomacy and Science ResearchWorldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree DataRelative Scientific Leadership

    One Response to “Ranking Universities Worldwide”

    1. Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » University Web Presence Rankings
      July 27th, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

      “The original aim of the Ranking was to promote Web publication, not to rank institutions. Supporting Open Access initiatives, electronic access to scientific publications and to other academic material are our primary targets…”

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