AsianScientist (Aug. 20, 2014) – Asian Universities have failed to crack the top twenty in this year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), partly due to to few Nobel prize or Fields medal winners in or from Asian institutions.
Originally devised by Shanghai Jiaotong University to see where the top Chinese universities stand globally, the ARWU rankings have become increasingly recognized and influential. This year, more than 1,200 universities were ranked according to six parameters: whether the staff or alumni of the institution has won a Nobel prize or Fields medal, number of papers published in the journals Nature and Science, number of article citations, number of researchers on the Thomson Reuters highly cited list and per capita performance of the institution.
American universities dominated the rankings, with Harvard university taking the top spot for the 12th year running. The University of Tokyo was ranked the top Asian institution, coming in at 21st place. Kyoto University and the University of Osaka rounded off Japan’s top three universities, ranked 26th and 78th respectively.
Australian universities also had a strong showing, with four universities—University of Melbourne (44th), Australia National University (74th), University of Queensland (85th) and University of Western Australia (88th)—making the top 100. Peking University, Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiaotong University itself were China’s leading institutions, ranked within the top 150 in the world.
Seoul National University placed as Korea’s foremost university, and the only Korean institution among the top 150. The situation was similar for National University of Singapore, which placed in the top 150, ahead of Nanyang Technological University.
Although these leading Asian universities performed relatively well in their publication and citation scores, they tended to perform poorly in the awards and alumni categories, with many within the top 150 scoring zero on both indicators.
The full listing can be found at: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Academic Ranking Of World Universities.
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