1 Universities Council on Water Resources Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education Issue 172, Pages 1-5, April 2021 Perspective Piece Diversity and Discrepancies in Water-related University Rankings: Is There a Need for More Consistency or Is There Value in Breadth? *Pablo A. Garcia-Chevesich1,2, Jonathan O. Sharp1, and John E. McCray1 1Colorado School of Mines. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hydrologic Science & Engineering Program, 2UNESCO, Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, *Corresponding author ccess to clean water is an urgent and socially and/or research programs in Environmental relevant global issue, as recognized by the Engineering, Civil Engineering, Geophysics, AU.S. National Academy of Engineers and Geology, and Hydrology, but lacks Public Health most other global scientific agencies. Universities or Health Sciences degrees. Ultimately, water- directly inform advances in this domain, serve as focused domains of study fall outside of traditional a training ground for practitioners who address degrees, groupings, and associated metrics leading challenges in water supply and quality, and more to challenges in assessing strengths across both broadly educate scientifically literate citizens. disciplines and degree programs. However, it is challenging for students seeking Several ranking systems exist that rate information on university degree programs such universities based on their strength in a specific as Hydrology or other water-focused areas to discipline, including water resources, but the find consistent information about programs, inmetrics for each are quite different. Ranking part because of the disciplinary diversity of this systems are based on multiple factors including subject. Ranking systems typically focus on prestige of faculty members and publications, more traditional departmental groupings (i.e., research funding, number and impact of geosciences, civil & environmental engineering, publications, search engine traffic, international public health, etc.). While special rankings do visibility, graduates in positions of influence, occur for water science and engineering related patent generation, perception by peer institutions, programs, they are topically incorporated within and financial sustainability, among others. TheQS various categories, including “Hydrology and World University Rankings (QS), for example, is a water resources”, “Water resources engineering”, ranking of the world’s top universities (not degree “Water treatment and sanitation”, “Environmental programs) produced by Quacquarelli Symonds, and health sciences”, and others that span that synthesizes peer rankings from thousands of traditional departments and have multiple homes scholars, academics, and recruiters in conjunction within and across institutions. These may involve with Scopus citations, faculty/student ratios, and categories that are absent at a particular university staff and student numbers. TheTimes Higher that has strengths in the co-listed category. For Education World University Rankings (THEWU), instance, our home institution of Colorado School on the other hand, assesses universities using five of Mines (or “Mines”) offers well regarded degrees categories: teaching, research, citations (research UCOWR Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education Diversity and Discrepancies in Water-related University Rankings 2 influence), salary of graduates, and international THEWU ranking system, but is not mentioned by reputation based on surveys. Another influential the other two. Similar situations are shown for other ranking system is the Academic Ranking of World educational institutions such as Wuhan University Universities (ARWU), also known as “Shanghai and the University of Colorado at Boulder. While Ranking”, which is based on quality of education, different evaluation metrics can explain some of faculty, and research output, among others. this, it also highlights discrepancies in binning Beginning in 1983, U.S. News & World Report water related programs across “Water resources” publishes an annual set of rankings of American versus “Clean water and sanitation”, which in this colleges and universities that are based upon example necessitates very different foundational data from surveys that the organization collects approaches and expertise. from each institution, as well as opinions from National ranking systems also exist in the U.S. faculty members and staff from other schools. such as the Forbes College Rankings (which This was expanded in 2014 to include Best is based on student satisfaction, post-graduate Global Universities. As a synthesis approach, the success, student debt, graduation rate, and Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities sums the academic success). Other national ranking systems QS, THEWU, and ARWU world ranks, excluding are based on factors such as faculty publications, institutions that do not have a distinct rank in those annual fundraising, graduation rates, student’s three systems. Some educational institutions (e.g., future earnings, affordability, internet appearance, United Nations University (UNU)) also publish and even athletics, nightlife, and campus their own ranking. Other international ranking quality. Examples include the Council for Aid to systems include the Center for World University Education, the Daily Beast’s College Rankings, Rankings, the Leiden Ranking, the G-factor, the the Economist’s Best Colleges, the Objective Global University Ranking, the Nature Index, the College Ranking, the Money’s Best Colleges, the Professional Ranking of World Universities, the Princeton Review Dream Colleges, the United Reuters World’s Top 100 Innovative Universities, States National Research Council, the Faculty the Round University Ranking, the SCImago Scholarly Productivity Index, the Top American Institutions Rankings, the University Ranking by Research Universities, the Washington Monthly Academic Performance, the Webometrics Ranking College Ranking, the TrendTopper MediaBuzz of World Universities, and the Research Center for College Guide, the American Council of Trustees Chinese Science Evaluation Ranking at Wuhan and Alumni, and the Niche College Rankings, University. among others. Additionally, websites such as With an increased visibility toward global issues universities.com (which considers average tuition on water availability and quality, there is growing cost, student-teacher ratio, and number of enrolled interest in undergraduate and graduate degrees in students), or stateuniversities.com (which is only water-related areas. In this sense, though the QS and based on the number of enrolled students) provide many other ranking systems do not consider “water” each year a ranking of educational institutions as a searchable topic of interest, both THEWU and available nationwide to learn about different ARWU develop a global ranking system for some professional fields. A ranking of the top-10 U.S. water topics. In contrast, the prominent U.S. News universities from these two websites is included in and World Report Graduate Program Rankings Table 2, considering different water-related topics; no longer includes specialties of hydrology or discrepancies among sites and categories are clear. water resources science and engineering. Table As one can see, another source of confusion 1 shows some water-related global university is the diverse factors that go into ranking such as rankings for 2020, wherein one can see differencescost of tuition, student-teacher ratio, or popularity across similar ranking categories. Higher ranking metrics. However, these factors do not address universities such as The University of Arizona and the quality of the technical, discipline-specific Texas A&M appear under the Shanghai and UNU education that is better suited for overall university rankings, but are not even listed within THEWU. or college rankings. As an example, the University In contrast, UNC Chapel Hill appears under the of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is ranked as one of Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education UCOWR 3 Garcia-Chevesich, Sharp, and McCray the world’s best universities in water education inform prospective students, it is unnecessarily (see Table 1), but it does not even appear in the confusing and confined by traditional groupings U.S. top-10 list from Table 2. Similarly, University and in some cases less relevant evaluation metrics. of Pennsylvania is listed #1 at universities.com Rather our call to the academic community is to under the “Hydrology and water resources” search, think about (and work on) key metrics needed to and #7 on stateuniversities.com, but the institution create a consistent and accurate ranking system for is not included in the international ranking systems universities and programs that focus their efforts (see Table 1). Another good example is Mines, on water sciences and engineering. This evaluation which regularly appears in worldwide and U.S. needs to embrace the diversity and richness within lists (see Tables 1 and 2). Based on research this theme so as to best inform future students and accomplishments (i.e., grants and peer-reviewed practitioners. publications), Mines is strong in hydrology and water resources engineering, but while it currently Acknowledgments plays a leading role in treatment technologies, it ReNUWIt (Re-Inventing the Nation’s Urban Water is not included within the top 50 in the THEWU Infrastructure), an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, multi- “Clean water and sanitation”