Tag: Research Performance
Spain Has A Very Low Density Of The World’S Top Universities
by admin on Aug.07, 2009, under University Resource
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is produced by the Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several indicators of academic or research performance are used to establish the ranking, these include highly cited researchers, articles indexed in major citation indices and staff winning Nobel Prizes.
The World’s Top-500 universities (2008) are mainly located in Europe (n=210; 40%), the Americas (n=190; 40%) and the Asian/Pacific region (n=100; 20%). There are nine universities located in Spain, representing 2% of the World’s Top-500 universities and 4% of the European universities in the ARWU ranking.
The Top-6 universities in Spain are: 1. University of Barcelona (ranked 152-200 in the world); 2. University Autonoma of Madrid (201-302), 2. University Complutense - Madrid; 4. University Autonoma Barcelona (303-401), 4. University Polytechnic Valencia (303-401) and 4. University of Valencia (303-401). This means that the top universities are located in three largest urban centres of Spain (Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia) and the top university is not located in the capital city.
All six universities are public institutions and the total number of students per university is relatively large compared to other countries (e.g. United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands). The average number of students for the Top-6 universities is 55,416, with a range from 33,118 at the University Autonoma of Madrid to 91,251 at the University Complutense - Madrid.
In order to make inter-country comparisons, AllAboutUni calculates the number of universities in the World’s Top-500 per million inhabitants. The overall number of universities per million inhabitants is 0.5 for industrialized countries. An earlier assessment found that small countries in Western Europe (Sweden (1.2), Finland (1.1) and Switzerland (1.0)) and New Zealand (1.2) has the highest number of universities per million inhabitants.
Eight Eu Countries not Represented in the World’s Top-500 Universities
by admin on Dec.31, 2008, under University Resource
An assessment carried out by AllAboutUni.com reveals that 8 of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU) are not represented in the World’s Top-50 universities. AllAboutUni.com is an independent, global and inter-active website where visitors can obtain information about universities (global rankings, student reviews, university news and campus pictures). It publishes regular reports on universities around the world.
The analysis is based on a ranking of the World’s Top-500 Universities produced by the Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several indicators of academic or research performance are used to establish the ranking, these include staff winning Nobel Prizes, highly cited researchers and articles indexed in major citation indices. The rankings have been published since 2003, with the 2008 rankings published on 15 August 2008.
The eight EU countries that are not represented in the World’s Top-500 universities in 2008 are: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania and Slovakia. In other words, small countries in Western Europe (Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta) and countries in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia). All of the other EU countries are represented in the list, with the top five being: Germany (44 universities), United Kingdom (42), France (23), Italy (22) and the Netherlands (12).
Overall, the Europe region is well represented in the World’s Top-500 universities, with roughly 40% (n=210) of universities based in this region compared to 40% (n=190) for the Americas and 20% (n=100) for Asia/Pacific. However, when one looks at the Top-100 Universities, there is a predominance of US universities (58 universities versus 23 for Europe), and the United Kingdom performs better than other European countries. In the Top-10 Universities, US and private universities are dominant .
One hypothesis is that the larger EU countries will dominate the number of universities in the list of the World’s Top-500 Universities. This is clearly the case with Germany, United Kingdom, France and Italy providing the most (62%) of the universities from Europe. However, if one adjusts for population size (i.e. one calculates the number of universities in the Top-500 per 1 million inhabitants in the country), the following ranking is obtained: Sweden (1.2 universities in the World’s Top-500 Universities per 1 million inhabitants), Finland (1.2), Austria (0.9), Denmark (0.8) and the Netherlands (0.7). This means the EU countries with the most universities per 1 million inhabitants are located in smaller countries in Western Europe, especially countries in Scandinavia.
The AllAboutUni.com website provides a portal where students can find independent information about universities from around the world. ‘The website allows students to compare colleges and universities online based on independent information: the Shanghai rankings, student reviews and campus pictures. Combining this with the information provided by university websites, we hope students will be able to find the college or university of their dreams’, says John Paget, Founder of the AllAboutUni.com website. John studied Economics at the London School of Economics and then completed graduate studies in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The AllAboutUni.com website was launched in November 2007.
