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2006 Peer Review Response Analysis
The Peer Review currently forms 40% of the weightings applied by the Times Higher Education Supplement to the various indicators included in the THES - QS World University Rankings. This article outlines the breakdown of the 3,703 respondents included in the Peer Review in the 2006 results.
On the first page of the peer review survey, respondents are asked to identify their broad faculty area of knowledge from five areas. Respondents are able to nominate more than one faculty area. The responses can be broken down as follows:
| Faculty Area | Respondents |
| All Faculty Areas | 46 |
| Arts & Humanities | 369 |
| Engineering & IT | 1431 |
| Life Sciences & Biomedicine | 499 |
| Natural Sciences | 1705 |
| Social Sciences | 754 |
Incidentally, a full explanation of how the Peer Review is compiled and how the reviewers are sourced is available here... THES - QS World University Rankings Methodology: The Peer Review.
Respondents are also asked to identify their knowledge by region. The list of institutions from which they can select within each subject area is influenced by their response to this question. Again, respondents are permitted to identify more than one region of knowledge.
| Region | Respondents |
| Americas | 1972 |
| Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 1774 |
| Europe, Middle East & Africa | 2114 |
Cross-referencing these two questions yields the following breakdown by both region and subject area:
| Faculty Area | Region | Respondents |
| All Faculty Areas | Americas | 30 |
| Arts & Humanities | Americas | 197 |
| Engineering & IT | Americas | 738 |
| Life Sciences & Biomedicine | Americas | 182 |
| Natural Sciences | Americas | 614 |
| Social Sciences | Americas | 211 |
| All Faculty Areas | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 32 |
| Arts & Humanities | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 149 |
| Engineering & IT | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 740 |
| Life Sciences & Biomedicine | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 169 |
| Natural Sciences | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 460 |
| Social Sciences | Asia, Australia & New Zealand | 224 |
| All Faculty Areas | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 30 |
| Arts & Humanities | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 237 |
| Engineering & IT | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 764 |
| Life Sciences & Biomedicine | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 199 |
| Natural Sciences | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 650 |
| Social Sciences | Europe, Middle East & Africa | 234 |
There has also been much interest as to the precise location of responding peers... in terms of the institutions that they represent. Whilst regional weightings are based on the individual knowledge specification above, but in most cases these will reflect the geographical location (and experience) of respondents.
| Country | Respondents |
| United States | 532 |
| United Kingdom | 378 |
| India | 256 |
| Australia | 191 |
| Canada | 153 |
| Italy | 114 |
| Malaysia | 112 |
| Germany | 103 |
| Indonesia | 93 |
| Singapore | 92 |
| China | 76 |
| Spain | 72 |
| France | 56 |
| Japan | 53 |
| Mexico | 51 |
| Turkey | 49 |
| Switzerland | 45 |
| Sweden | 44 |
| Brazil | 43 |
| Netherlands | 43 |
| Belgium | 39 |
| Thailand | 37 |
| Israel | 36 |
| Portugal | 35 |
| Argentina | 33 |
| Greece | 32 |
| Iran | 31 |
| Ireland | 31 |
| Denmark | 30 |
| Austria | 29 |
| Poland | 29 |
| Romania | 29 |
| Taiwan | 29 |
| South Africa | 27 |
| South Korea | 27 |
| Colombia | 26 |
| Hong Kong | 25 |
| New Zealand | 25 |
| Russia | 24 |
| Pakistan | 23 |
| Finland | 23 |
| Nigeria | 20 |
| Other | 266 |
In total there were responses from 101 countries.
