2008 THE - QS World University Rankings Preview

How such rankings should be constructed remains a matter of constant debate. The Higher Education Funding Council for England was the latest official body to commission a review. Its report, published in April and covering both national and global rankings, concluded that globalisation was sure to see greater significance attached to international comparisons in future.

This year’s World University Rankings will be based on a record number of responses from academics and employers, as well as on thoroughly-researched data on citations, staffing levels and the proportions of international faculty and students. More than 6,000 academics ventured an opinion on the leading universities in their own discipline. The results were weighted to ensure a fair representation both geographically and by subject grouping.

The final results will see more countries represented among the top 200 institutions, with Continental Europe beginning to make more of a mark than in previous editions. But there will be less volatility this year, thanks to the change in statistical methodology introduced in 2007. Single outliers no longer have a disproportionate effect on the overall ranking. 

Other changes this year include a rise in the number of universities included in the subject tables. Universities will receive more information on their own data through an interactive database.

Nunzio Quacquarelli, the Managing Director of QS, said: “From the start, we have been committed to improving the rankings year on year. I am convinced that these will prove invaluable to the growing number of people who need to compare universities in different countries, but we will not stop there. We are already talking to stakeholders about further improvements in the future.”

Although it is the main institutional ranking that invariably captures the headlines, for many readers there will be as much interest in five subject groupings. Once again there will be separate tables for the humanities, social sciences, life sciences and biomedicine, natural sciences and technology. Last year, American universities enjoyed a clean sweep of these rankings, with Harvard topping three categories. 

Since those positions were announced, there have been numerous conferences on the subject of rankings, often comparing the THE/QS version with those produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the benchmarking techniques of Germany’s Centre for Higher Education Development. All have their strengths: the largely historical, science-based nature of the Shanghai rankings is evident in their near-static nature, while the CHE operation produces a wealth of information without committing to a final ranking.

The THE/QS rankings set out to give an up-to-date and rounded assessment of the world’s leading universities at a time of unprecedented international mobility both by students and by academics. The results have been inclusive in their geographical spread, demonstrating the pre-eminence of the American system and the strength of British universities, but also charting the rise of Asian institutions and acknowledging the regional power of Australia.

This week’s rankings will confirm those trends, but they will also increase the determination of some in the Middle East and in Latin America to make their mark. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, for example, has set itself the target of getting at least one university into the world’s top 200.

Global higher education rankings are still in their infancy, with a limited range of indicators at their disposal, but the appetite for them is not in doubt. This week’s publications will mark the latest stage in a much longer-term project.