The Academic Structures of Boston, London and Paris: a Comparison Report Prepared for CNRS
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The academic structures of Boston, London and Paris: a comparison Report prepared for CNRS CLIENT: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) DATE: October 2016 [email protected] - www.sirisacademic.com 2 THE ACADEMIC STRUCTURES OF BOSTON, LONDON AND PARIS: A COMPARISON October 2016 Submitted to: Centre Nationnal de la Recherche Scientifique By SIRIS Academic Av. Francesc Cambó, 17 08003 Barcelona Spain Tel. +34 93 624 02 28 [email protected] www.sirisacademic.com For more information and comments about this report, please contact us at [email protected] 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................... 6 KEY RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................................ 8 LINKS TO THE INTERACTIVE VISUALISATIONS PRESENTED IN THIS REPORT .................................................... 12 Rankings overview ..................................................................................................................................................... 12 Maps of science ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Visualisation of ranking’s qualitative vs. quantitative criteria ................................................................................... 12 Visualisations of ranking’s qualitative criteria vs. citation impact ............................................................................. 12 Visualisations of scientific production and impact .................................................................................................... 12 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 13 PART 1. A FIRST GLANCE: THE SIMILARITIES................................................................................................... 18 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................................................................... 18 CITY RANKINGS ..................................................................................................................................................... 20 HIGHER EDUCATION .............................................................................................................................................. 21 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................................. 21 PART 2. SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION, RANKINGS AND RECOGNITION ................................................................ 23 SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 23 Specialisation ............................................................................................................................................... 24 Maps of Science ........................................................................................................................................... 24 RANKINGS ............................................................................................................................................................ 30 Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 30 Qualitative vs. quantitative criteria ............................................................................................................. 31 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................................. 36 EFFICIENCY-RELATED CRITERIA ................................................................................................................................. 37 PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF SCIENTIFIC POTENTIAL .......................................................................... 42 PART 3. COMPARING THE STRUCTURATION OF THE INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPES........................................ 43 BOSTON AREA ...................................................................................................................................................... 43 Legal categories and missions ..................................................................................................................... 43 Carnegie classification ................................................................................................................................. 45 LONDON AREA ...................................................................................................................................................... 46 Legal categories and missions ..................................................................................................................... 46 Classification ................................................................................................................................................ 47 PARIS AREA .......................................................................................................................................................... 49 Legal categories and missions ..................................................................................................................... 49 Classification ................................................................................................................................................ 50 COMPARING BOSTON, LONDON AND PARIS IN TERMS OF INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURATION ................................................... 50 PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION(S) ...................................................................................................................... 56 DO WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES INCREASE SOCIAL STRATIFICATION? .............................................................................. 56 DO WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES HAVE A STRONG POSITIVE IMPACT ON THEIR ENVIRONMENT? ............................................ 59 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PARISIAN LANDSCAPE AND WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES ................................................................ 61 THE CHALLENGES AHEAD ......................................................................................................................................... 62 BIBLIOGRAPHY (MAIN REFERENCES) .............................................................................................................. 67 APPENDICES................................................................................................................................................... 69 APPENDIX A: REMARK ON THE PERIMETER OF THE THREE AREAS ..................................................................................... 69 APPENDIX B: THE CARNEGIE CLASSIFICATION.............................................................................................................. 69 APPENDIX C: VIKKY BOLIVERS CLUSTERS OF UK UNIVERSITIES BY VARIABLE ....................................................................... 71 4 APPENDIX D: OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN CLASSIFICATIONS ............................................................................................... 72 APPENDIX E: WEB OF SCIENCE QUERIES USED IN THE REPORT......................................................................................... 73 Queries by Area ......................................................................................................................................................... 73 APPENDIX F: DATA PROBLEMS: PARIS-SORBONNE ACCORDING TO WEB OF SCIENCE: .......................................................... 78 APPENDIX G: LIST OF INSTITUTIONS PER AREA ............................................................................................................. 79 Paris ............................................................................................................................................................. 79 London ......................................................................................................................................................... 86 Boston .......................................................................................................................................................... 89 5 Executive Summary The following report compares the institutional landscape of Paris, London and Boston. The first part of the report outlines the deep similarities in terms of overall scientific productivity of the three cities, whilst highlighting one key difference: Paris has no institution as well ranked as Harvard, MIT, Imperial or UCL. We argue that this difference is critical for three reasons: - It was used to justify the launch of the Programme Investissements d’avenir and is constantly used to defend ongoing institutional change, both by politicians and by the institutions themselves. - A global Matthews effect is enabling leading institutions to attract ever more resources and gain ever more visibility. - Increasing competition from countries such as China is predominantly affecting institutions who have nearly but not quite broken into the leading group.