world university rankings phil baty deputy editor times higher education magazine abuja, nigeria, 22...
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World University Rankings
Phil Baty
Deputy Editor
Times Higher Education magazine
Abuja, Nigeria, 22 April, 2009
About Times Higher Education
The weekly magazine for all higher education professionals
About Times Higher Education
The weekly magazine for all higher education professionals
• Founded in 1971 as a tabloid newspaper
• Re-launched in January 2008 as a weekly magazine for all professionals in higher
education
• Published every Thursday
• Part of TSL Education Limited, publisher of the Times Educational Supplement
• The leading publication for UK and international recruitment advertising
About www.timeshighereducation.co.uk
The dedicated website for higher education news, jobs
and resources
About www.timeshighereducation.co.uk
The dedicated website for higher education news, jobs and
resources
• Website launched in 1994
• All news, opinions, book reviews etc from weekly print section published
on-line every Thursday
• Now re-launched with dedicated daily higher education news and
opinions section. Includes blog postings from around the world
• All universities’ job vacancies advertised on line
• More than 1 million page impressions a month, 400 monthly unique users
• Website has international audience: 44 per cent UK; 18 per cent US; 3.4
per cent Australia. But only 0.15 per cent Nigeria.
• www.timeshighereducation.co.uk
About Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings
• Times Higher Education, with partners QS, launched a new ranking of world universities
in 2004.
• QS was founded in 1989 by Nunzio Quacquarelli during his MBA and began as an MBA
career guide. Based in London, Paris and Singapore, QS now employs 100 staff,
Promotes career/educational international mobility.
• Annual rankings published every year since 2004
• 2009 Rankings to be published in Times Higher Education magazine, and on
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk on 8 October, 2009
Why world rankings?
• Higher Education is a truly international sector
• The UK government made a call for a ranking to ensure that the UK’s fast-
expanding university system was competitive on the world stage
• Universities becoming more global – in terms of student and staff recruitment, and
research collaboration
• 5 million students to be studying outside their home country by 2010. In China, for
example, there were more than 140,000 foreign students in 2005, compared to
45,000 in 2009.
• If we did not do it, someone else from outside the higher education
sector would. And many are now doing so.
• Increasing demand for international comparative information as global competition
increases
The THE-QS approach to World Rankings
The four pillars
How are the Rankings compiled?
The six criteria
• Academic Peer Review.
• Employer Review
• Citations per faculty member
• International Students
• International Faculty
Academic peer review
A global survey of academics, asking respondent to identify
universities they consider excellent in their own broad filed
of knowledge• Peer review is the centerpiece of the rankings. This measure accounts for 40 per cent of
a university’s overall score.
• It is our way of ensuring academic value is added
• Academics have to enter our survey from an academic site (.ac.uk, .edu etc).
• They are simply asked to name up to 30 institutions they regard as the best in the world
in the field in which they work (arts and humanities, social sciences, science,
biomedicine and technology.
• Range from lecturers to university presidents
• In 2008, 6,354 people gave views, nominating an average of 20 universities each, giving
more than 120,000 data points. Questions on both inside and outside their own country –
to avoid response bias by country.
Academic peer review
Who do we ask?
2008 Top Responding Countries
• The opinions that make up the peer review score are taken from
responses to a survey distributed worldwide:
• To our previous respondents;
• To subscribers to The World Scientific. www.worldscientific.com,
from which 180,000 email addresses are drawn, and;
• From the International Book Information Service, from Mardev.
www.mardev.com
• Also coming soon: A new academic sign-up facility, where people
can volunteer to become peer-reviewers. They are not able to vote
for their own institutions. See: www.topuniversities.com
Academic peer review
The top responding countries for 2008
2008 Top Responding Countries
United States 638
United Kingdom 563
Australia 286
Italy 277
Canada 239
India 236
Indonesia 228
Philippines 201
Germany 182
Malaysia 180
Five subject areas: arts and humanities; engineering and IT; life sciences and biomedicine; natural
sciences; and social sciences.
For each subject area, a regional weighting is applied to ensure equal representation from our
three “super regions”: America; Europe; and Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.
Employer review
A global survey of employers, with experience of recruiting from
universities, asking where they like to recruit their graduates
• This measure makes up 10 per cent of an institution’s overall score (added for
the first time in the 2005 rankings)
• Includes major global employers who recruit around the world – active
recruiters. Sourced through QS network of contacts, QS database, and since
2007, employers nominated by the universities themselves
• Asked simply which universities they like to recruit from
• 2008 included the opinion of 2,339 recruiters in every field, from mining to
media
• Amalgamates up to three years of data
• They are 43 per cent American, 32 per cent European and 25 per cent Asia
pacific
Employer review
A global survey of employers, with experience of recruiting from
universities, asking where they like to recruit their graduates
Top Responding countries
United States 346
United Kingdom 269
Australia 178
Mexico 75
Netherlands 75
Singapore 74
Russia 69
India 64
Argentina 60
Greece 59
Citations per faculty member
Using data provided by Scopus, this measure combines research
productivity and quality, taking into account the scale of an
institution
• This measure makes up 20 per cent of an institution’s overall score
• We measure the number of citations per published papers from a university,
and divide it by the number of full-time equivalent staff it employs.
• We do not measure citations per paper, because we want to show the density
of “brainpower” on campus
• Scopus data covers a five year period. Scopus owned by Elsevier.
• There is a bias against non-English publication, against arts and humanities
subjects.
Staff-student ratio
This indicator is designed to serve as a widely available proxy to
judge an institution’s commitment to teaching.
• This indicator is worth 20 per cent of an institution’s overall score
• Data gathered by QS from a range of sources: UK Higher Education statistics
Agency; US National Center for Education Statistics, and from universities
directly
• Controlled definition of staff member, always full-time equivalent
International Students
The proportion of a university’s international students is used to
evaluate its approach to internationalisation and its
commitment to international students.
• This indicator makes up 5 per cent of an institution’s overall score.
• We believe it gives an idea of how successful an institution is at attracting students
from around the world.
International Faculty
Like the previous indicator, this assesses an institution’s
commitment to globalisation
• This indicator is worth 5 per cent of an institution’s
overall score.
• We believe it shows which universities are committed to attracting
the best international academic talent, and which universities
academics around the world want
to be at.
The criteria
How the data are put together
Peer Review
Citations
Student-
faculty ratio Recruiter review
Int’l students
Int’l staff
What we found in 2008 rankings
• Harvard has been top every year since we started the rankings – A $35 billion endowment
might have helped it get there. But this is now diminished.
• The US and UK take up every one of the top 15 places
• US has 58 in the top 200, the UK has 29.
• There are 9 Australian universities in the top 200 and the Australian National University is
the top institution outside the US and UK
• Canada has 12 institutions in the top 200.
What we found in the 2008 rankings
• The top 200 in 2008 includes universities in 33 states up from 28 in 2007The top 200 in 2008 includes universities in 33 states up from 28 in 2007
• US, UK, Canada, Australia, NetherlandsUS, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands
• Korea, China, Japan, SingaporeKorea, China, Japan, Singapore
• Thailand, MalaysiaThailand, Malaysia
• Continental EuropeContinental Europe
• Developing world small but improving (1 in 2004, 2 in 2005, only UNAM in 2006, Developing world small but improving (1 in 2004, 2 in 2005, only UNAM in 2006,
3 in 2007, 5 in 2008)3 in 2007, 5 in 2008)
• Africa does not fare well. In 2008, only four institutions in South Africa, and one
in Egypt, made it onto QS’s main international list.
What we found in the 2008 rankings
The developing world is rising up
• South Africa’s only entry in the top 200 last year, Cape Town, rose from
200th
in 2007 to 179th in 2008
• Brazil and Argentina have one entry in the top 200 each
• Mexico’s National Autonomous University rose to 150th
place last year.
• Two entries from India in 2008: the Delhi and Bombay branches of the
Indian Institute of Technology.
What we found over time
The progress of nations
What can Nigerian universities do?
Key issues for Nigeria
• Provide information
• Recruit from an international pool/retain your academics
• Concentrate research effort
• Invest
What can Nigerian universities do?
Provide the right information
• Our partners in compiling the rankings, QS, want your data!
• In 2008, 604 institutions were considered
• Any university in the world can write to QS: [email protected]
• QS welcome information about any individual institution and their national
higher education system.
• Every university in the world is entitled to a free self-populated profile on the
QS website, www.topuniversities.com, where QS publishes the Times Higher
Education top 200 and a further 300 institutions ranked below the top 200.
Just write and request a username and password.
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Provide the right information
• Make sure you’re included in QS’s list
• QS have a two-tier approach to its surveys. Both peers and employers are asked to
first comment on international universities and then on domestic ones.
• In this context QS can include any number of Nigerian universities in its surveys
and, over a period of two to three years, begin to get a picture of which are
considered the best in Nigeria. They can then be added to the main international
list.
• QS says: To develop a clearer picture on HEIs in any part of the world requires the
proactive cooperation of universities from the region.
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Recruit from an international pool/retain your academics
“A paradox is that despite doubling and then trebling student numbers
African higher education still has the lowest enrolments in the world – but
sends the most students to the north,”
Goolam Mohamedbhai,
secretary-general, Association of African Universities.
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Recruit from an international pool/retain your academics
“It has been estimated that there are more African scientists and engineers
working in the US than in the whole of Africa.”
Johann Mouton, of South Africa’s Stellenbosct University
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Recruit from an international pool/retain your academics
Times Higher Education magazine’s international academic recruitment
advertising.
Speak to Jane Johns, Classified Sales Manager:
020 3194 3346
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Recruit from an international pool/retain your academics
What can Nigerian Universities do?
A new focus on research
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Investment
What can Nigerian Universities do?
Investment
“The UK, Australia, and New Zealand are all looking at expanding higher education,
India is just about to go through a major phase of expansion and its all driven by a
shared belief across almost all countries that higher education is vital for the prosperity
and survival of economies and societies as we continue to move into a global
information society.”
John Tarrant, general secretary, Association of Commonwealth Universities
