1. The World University Rankings

2. Presentation at EPFL Martin Ince -Contributing editor, THES Crans-Montana, Switzerland 20 March 2006

3. The THES Since 1971 Weekly newspaper formerly associated with The Times [of London] Group including TES Online at www.thes.co.uk since 1994www.thes.co.uk

4. Why rank universities Interest in ranking things and people -Hospitals -Schools -Local authorities -Rich lists; Britain, world, Asians, footballers -Universities: The Times

5. National Rankings The Times -produced by John O’Leary, editor of THES -Institutions as well as subjects Criteria for subjects include: - Teaching quality -Research quality -Entry standards -Employability

6. National rankings (2) Criteria for institutions include -Teaching standards -Staff/student ratio -Library spending -Facilities spending -Good degrees -Jobs -Research

7. 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

8. 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

9. Why world rankings (2)? GATS EU and Bologna 2 million students outside home country BTA

10. In addition Interest from governments – UK Treasury EU, Germany Shanghai

11. How to do it? Audience not just possible students Internationally mobile staff Internationally mobile money -Focus on: -Teaching -Research -International orientation

12. 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

13. 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

14. The question Online survey The top universities in the topics they know about -Arts and humanities -Social sciences -Science -Biomedicine -Technology

15. Plusses Simple Hard to cheat Understandable Robust Self-correcting if large enough sample

16. Minuses Biases include -Age -Size -Name -Beijing -Loughborough Audience conservatism

17. 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

18. Quantitative measures Aim to measure universities in terms of -Student commitment -Research commitment -International commitment

19. How to do this Extensive data gathering exercise Mainly by UK firm QS Mix of data sources National Institutional Direct contact

20. First quantitative criterion… Staff/student ratio Classic measure of commitment to teaching Poses some problems and issues 20 per cent of final score

21. 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

22. Citations Like peer review Classic measure of research quality Use ESI from Thomson Our consultant Evidence Ltd

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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)

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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

33. ….in detail Peer review -173 in the world, down 63, 22/100 100 score was by Harvard Employer review, 174 in the world

34. 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

35. Staff/student Here the ratio is 2.0 5 in the world, unusual Up 123 places Similar big rise by ETH First year effect?

36. Citations This score 23.7, low by Swiss standards Big fall Opposite side of coin from staff/student ratio 3 rd Francophone institution, those also very low on citations

37. Things that don’t work Library spending Course cost Completion Entry standards Wealth Alumni giving

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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

41. The future Important for individuals -Students -Academics

42. The future (2) Important for governments Ireland, Malaysia, Switzerland… Important for business Important globally, eg for the EU

43. Future developments New data -Any suggestions? Refine existing data, eg from employers More global reach, eg Africa New analyses New entrants Prizes And most importantly….

44. The book Planned for 2006 500 institutions including articles on the top group and shorter details on the rest Data in groups

45. …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