Higher Education Evaluation And Accreditation

Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan Press Release

2010 World Universities Ranking

Sep. 15, 2010

HEEACT released its highly anticipated “2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities” (2010 HEEACT Ranking) on Sep. 15, 2010. These are HEEACT’s fourth annual global rankings and include the ranking of the universities based on their overall performance as well as separate rankings by field. Further, HEEACT for the first time offers extended rankings by subject in the science and technology fields.

On Sep. 15, the Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) released the “2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities,” which includes the ranking of the universities based on their overall performance (overall ranking), rankings by field, and rankings by subject. The new subject based rankings were released for the first time since HEEACT launched its annual ranking program in 2007. The subject rankings focused specifically on the subjects of the natural sciences (SCI), and engineering, computing & technology (ENG).

This year, the top 10 universities in the overall ranking are: Harvard University, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Washington- Seattle, University of California- Los Angeles, University of California- Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, University of Toronto, and University of Oxford. Harvard University in the United States has been in the top spot all four years of the annual HEEACT ranking. In Europe and Asia, University of Oxford in UK and the University of Tokyo in Japan had the best performance, finishing 10th and 14th respectively in the ranking.

Starting from 2008, HEEACT also began offering rankings in six fields in order to show universities’ relative strengths in different research domains. This year, Harvard is in the lead in the fields of clinical medicine (MED), life sciences (LIFE), and social sciences (SOC). MIT is the top in the field of engineering, computing & technology (ENG). UC- Berkeley and UC- Davis finished in first place in natural sciences (SCI) and agriculture & environment sciences (AGE), respectively.

This year, the newly released “Rankings by Subject” further reveal universities’ performance in the subjects of SCI and ENG. MIT tops the subjects of electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, and materials science. UC- Berkeley leads in physics, chemistry, and civil engineering. Stanford, University of Colorado- Boulder, and Kyoto University of Japan are respectively crowned in mathematics, geosciences, and chemical engineering.

The Overall ranking: Schools in the USA still dominate the list and lead in university based scientific research activities

1 Observing the 2010 top 100 and top 500 lists, one clearly sees that United States still dominates the world in scientific research. 56 universities in the top 100 are U.S. universities (159 in the top 500). UK follows USA with 8 universities in the top 100. Canada takes the third place (6 in top 100). But in the top 500, Germany (45 universities in the top 500) superseded UK (38 in the top 500) and took the second place. In Asia/Pacific region, Japanese universities have the best performance in scientific research. 28 Japanese universities entered the top 500 list, followed by China (16), South Korea and Australia (each with 10), Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Israel (each with 5).

Among the North & Latin American universities of the 2010 top 100, the leading universities of each country are: USA’s Harvard University (1st), Canada’s University of Toronto (9th), and Brazil’s University of São Paulo (74th). In Asia/Pacific region, the leaders are: Japan’s University of Tokyo (14th), Australia’s University of Melbourne (43rd), South Korea’s Seoul National University (67th), and Singapore’s National University of Singapore (84th).

Among the European universities of the 2010 top 100, the leading universities of each country are: UK’s University of Oxford (10th), Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet (34th), Germany’s Ludwig- Maximilians- Universität München (44th), Finland’s University of Helsinki (47th), Netherlands’ Utrecht University (49th), France’s University of Paris VI: Pierre et Marie Curie (51st), Denmark’s University of Copenhagen (54th), Switzerland’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology- Zurich (57th), Belgium’s Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (77th), and Italy’s University of Milan (99th).

National Taiwan University ranks No. 1 among Taiwan, Hong Kong and China based Universities

Comparing the overall performance of universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, National Taiwan University still leads in the 2010 overall ranking. The second and third best universities are Tsinghua University in China and Peking University respectively. In rankings by field, Peking University tops in both LIFE and SCI. Tsinghua University in China and Zhejiang University respectively rank first in ENG and AGE. The University of Hong Kong tops the MED, while the Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the best in SOC.

In rankings by subject, Tsinghua University of China is the No. 1 in the following subjects: physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, and materials science. The City University of Hong Kong ranks first in two subjects: mathematics and computer science. China University of Geosciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University are respectively leaders in the subjects of geosciences, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering.

The methodology places e qual emphas i s on short-term and long-term indicator s and stressing indicators on research quality rather than quantity

2 In 2007, HEEACT initiated the annual “Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities” in order to understand the research performances and competitiveness of world universities. The HEEACT ranking is based entirely on scientific papers statistics and focuses on three major criteria- research productivity, research impact, and research excellence. The global ranking is unique in its emphasis on the quality of the scientific papers; the indicators designed to assess research quality accounts for 80% of the total score. It also evaluates both a university’s short-term and long-term research performance. 55% of the score assesses universities’ short-term research performance, thereby ensuring a fairer methodology for universities with shorter history which is the case for many schools in the newly developed countries.

The HEEACT ranking employs a sophisticated set of bibliometric indicators including: the number of articles of the last 11 years, the number of articles of the current year, the number of citations of the last 11 years, the number of citations of the last 2 years, the average number of citations of the last 11 years, the h-index of the last 2 years, the number of highly cited papers, and the number of articles of the current year in high-impact journals.

The complete listings of the 2010 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities are now available on the official website of Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan. http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en- us/2010/homepage/ .

Dr. Mu-Hsuan Huang Researcher, Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan Professor, National Taiwan University E-mail: [email protected]