Rankings: New for 2010

Good move. I'd suggest that 40 per cent is too high a weighting for a subjective measure like peer review.

Can you do something about obvious bias in favour of UK?

I find it quite absurd that LSE is ranked 66 because of its relatively low citation score. And seriously Stanford and MIT is ranked below UCL and Imperial? How about including something like graduate starting salaries?

There is clearly some sort of bias against smaller and specialist institutions (like the LSE). Can that be re-thought? Big doesn't always mean better.

I think it's a good idea that you guys want to improve your rankings. Here are some suggestions: -careful with the peer review (40% is quite high for something that could be acused of being subjective. Maybe you can increase the number of academics interviewed) -I don't understand why you don't take into account the resources the University has at their disposal (you can't really assure academic excellence without money) -take into account the jobs students get after graduation -I like the employer review : it's definitely a keeper -Great that you already thought of subject rankings -Maybe take into account a little (5%) the international awards received by academics teaching at that University. Good luck.

Clearly something must be done to raise LSE's rank to a level that matches the quality of its education. LSE deserves to be measure alongside other reputable universities. The 60+ rank damages LSE's reputation in the long-run. Include indicators such as graduate job prospects and admissions selectivity.

Yes, LSE deserves a higher rank! And, maybe you should give less importance to citations! And another suggestion/request! Could you publish the rankings of universities which provide distance learning courses? For eg. Harvard Extension School, University of London External System, etc Great going!

I think that you need to rethink why the proportion of international academic staff and students form part the ranking. Although fostering a diverse institutional community is welcome and this can help institutions to internationalise, I have yet to see any evidence that the mere presence of international faculty and students directly contribute to quality (in a way that home students and faculty do not). Attractiveness is not necessarily a proxy for quality.

Take into account the avg salary of a graduate and the % of professors who have a PhD.

I agree! Citations shouldn't form such an imperative part of the survey!

Why is University of St Andrews is placed very low??? Any comments

@sjwku International faculty does not directly contribute to quality. However, it signals that the university is likely to be recruiting in the open market instead of appointing cronies. Having said that, I fully agree that attractiveness is not necessarily a good proxy for quality.

I would like to see more emphasis on citations and other research-related indicators. These inform how well the faculties are accepted in the academic circle. Let's base everything on academic productivity and excellence. What can we do with small class size and a large body of international students when the professors themselves are stupid? It is also important that you do not try to cover up the weaknesses of British universities by those unnecessary indicators. We all know how easy it is for international students to get acceptance to universities in UK and the commonwealth. There's no need to push British universities to the top when your academic excellence is still questionable. Let's face the fact and improve. That's the key.

It's heartening news, that Times Higher Education will merge with Thomson Reuters, congratulations to you. My view that every survey should include the employment and work opportunities for universities graduates. Becuse the ultimate goal of this studies, to have work in the field of your degree.

Hazem. It is not a merger between the organisations. It is simply a deal that Times Higher Education magazine will partner with Thomson Reuters, instead of previous partners, QS, to produce the annual world rankings. It still looks like excellent news to me.

I disagree with the fact that international experience doesn’t contribute to academic excellence. Knowing about people, cultures, habits, maybe even learn their language a little can have an educational value (especially in social sciences)

I reckon that 'International faculty' and 'International student' weightage be reduced and weightage for employer review be increased.

I think that in the new methodology, research quality must be emphasized. Of course, research quality evaluation is not an easy topic. In a world ranking of such a scale, it is very expensive to obtain unbiased and representative expert views on research quality of the universities. Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) is publishing a world ranking for research institutes based on the 3E Framework for Evaluation (which roots back to Prof. Checkland’s research in Lancaster University) and scientomtric information. It must be helpful to consult CAS on its methodology.

@Bogdan B. You may disagree that that international experience doesn’t contribute to academic excellence and you may be right - the key point is that we don't know one way or another (there are no facts on this subject). I personally believe that a diverse academic community is a good thing and can create a valuable academic experience, I just can't provide any evidence for it being better than a less diverse community in terms of ranking institutions on 'quality' indicators.

Less weight for peer review - I don't think one can have an informed opinion on more than a few universities. On all other universities, one must rely on prejudice and hearsay.

I love Z's suggestion that the rankings should be changed to the RAE. Can anyone remember that universities are places of education and not research institutes? STUDENTS matter.

Quality in education is notoriously difficult to define. You can have excellent HE teachers in one part of an HEI, and less excellent teachers elsewhere. More stress should nevertheless be placed on the quality of teaching, which, however, is far harder to determine rigorously than research. China is presently placing particular emphasis on the quality of its teaching staff, and rankings should at least attempt to mirror this part of quality more. As HEIs are so diverse around the world, and the manner in which they themselves address the topic of their own quality, any rankings should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt and it is impossible to truly compare like with like (cf. above example of LSE).

Ranking by subject area is very welcome, yet note must also be taken of interdisciplinary subject studies. Universities' research and Innovation capacities, as well as investment in emerging academic fields, should also be taken into account. Alumni's career success ratings, as well as Faculty acclaim i.e. their contribution to their particular field of study etc. also ought to lend to a University's ranking credentials.

Why do the ranking order of the UK universities in the World List not match the UK list? This inconsistency should be fixed...

Why do the rankings not match? Maybe it's because the domestic rankings are produced by The Times and the world rankings are produced by Times Higher Education (who have no affiliation with News International any more...)

Also, MP, they use very different indicators. Eg domestic tables use A level entry, results of NSS, etc. None of these are international measures.

PornStarZ, Paulie, eho and A J are spot-on about LSE. It's ridiculous that LSE scored 29 out of 100 for research quality in the last THE table (cf Cambridge 89, UCL 90, Oxford 80 etc) when in the last UK RAE it ranked as high as or higher than those institutions. Indeed by one RAE 2008 measure LSE was the best UK university for research. If you have to use citations - too narrow to measure all LSE research - can't you at least weight the results by discipline?

To follow up on comments from sjwku and Bogdan B, internationalisation is a crucial quality in the life of any institution. However, we should know how that quality is measured. Does internationalisation refer to the mere presence of faculty and students from elsewhere? Or does it ever consider the international qualities of 'home' staff and students, such as their language skills or study/research periods spent abroad? The predominance of the English language in academia ensures that the brain drain tends to go in one direction.

I am not sure what story is behind your decision. However QS achieved huge business success by WUR. QS WUR seminar on 23 November before QS-Apple conference at Kuala Lumpur is completely full. It seems to me QS ranking is world de facto standard. I wish you a good luck from 2010.

Always nice to hear from QS' marketing people...

There are many registered students those who leave higher educational institutions with no degrees (Masters and PhDs). Some people work for PhDs and end up with only Masters. Reasons or the faults may be with the University or student or may be both. Adding some weight age to reflect the due completion of research degrees would be very useful to someone who is looking for a good university.

http://blog.clearadmit.com/2009/11/uk%E2%80%99s-times-higher-education-drops-rankings-research-partner-qs/

Great hearing worldwide to improve THES-QS ranking 2010 ! My suggestions >> 1) Rankings should be reflected the reality of the total quality of higher education institutions [HEIs]; 2) a good choice to use the Berlin Principles by IREG [Int'l Ranking Expert Group]; 3) publications, abstracts, research performance, proceedings, and lots of outstanding academic works present by many languages, Thomson Reuters can be responded to work scientifically for new ranking?? 4) Many universities were leapfrogging >= 50, >= 100 places annually [THE 2004-2009 League Tables], I wonder about validity of the rankings. However, I appreciate to THES-QS Team for enhancing quality of rankinngs continuously. Kampechara in Bangkok, Thailand.

It is great news that the THE are moving to improve their rankings. However, as the news items make clear, they will not be doing this with QS as the data partner. THE have dropped QS, and are going forward without them.

QS is emphasizing much on the amout of money an institution spends behind research. Harvard is in top by the virtue of its massive research spending. I have given the prfect ranking below: 1. University of Cambridge 2.Harvard University 3, University of Oxford 4. MIT 5. UCL 6. Yale University 7. Imperial College 8. London School of Economics 9. Stanford University 10. Cornell University

I agree whole heartedly about LSE. What clearly annoys the university is not that citation is given so much weight, but simply that THES has WRONGLY calculated it for the university. The general ranking should take into account the differences in subject matter, whereby science journals cite far more than than in the social sciences, yet this is no reflection on quality. Factors that should be included are; peer review, employers review; graduate salaries; research quality (not citations); international students/staff; value for money; student/staff ratio; selectivity (ie applicants per place and average grades of students), maybe a measure of what alumni have gone onto achieve (nobel prizes/world leaders). In short, as long as the Harvards, Stanfords, Oxbridge's, LSE's, MIT's are around the top then people would not complain. If the ranking looks odd (as it currently does) then there is something wrong.