<p>For whatever it’s worth, following are Newsweek’s top 20 most global universities:</p>
<li>Harvard University</li>
<li>Stanford University</li>
<li>Yale University</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology</li>
<li>University of California at Berkeley</li>
<li>University of Cambridge</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute Technology</li>
<li>Oxford University</li>
<li>University of California at San Francisco</li>
<li>Columbia University</li>
<li>University of Michigan at Ann Arbor</li>
<li>University of California at Los Angeles</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Duke University</li>
<li>Princeton Universitty</li>
<li>Tokyo University</li>
<li>Imperial College London</li>
<li>University of Toronto</li>
<li>Cornell University</li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
</ol>
<p>Ranking Methodology:
“We evaluated schools on some of the measures used in well-known rankings published by Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Times of London Higher Education Survey. Fifty percent of the score came from equal parts of three measures used by Shanghai Jiatong: the number of highly-cited researchers in various academic fields, the number of articles published in Nature and Science, and the number of articles listed in the ISI Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities indices. Another 40 percent of the score came from equal parts of four measures used by the Times: the percentage of international faculty, the percentage of international students, citations per faculty member (using ISI data), and the ratio of faculty to students. The final 10 percent came from library holdings (number of volumes).”</p>
<p>ANyone find it amazing that Caltech made number four, even with part of the scores based on the humanities dpt? And Caltech doesn't exactly stress humanities? Wow.</p>
<p>In china (and pretty much every country except the US) universities don't do much research; most research there happens (and most top scientists work) at independent research institutes which do not operate as teaching facilities.</p>
<p>The ranking essentially compares faculty quality at places which also have students- thus inherently favoring countries where research and education occurs in tandem.
The ranking would be much different if it was based on <em>student quality</em>- there would certainly be fewer american schools on the list.</p>
<p>An interesting point, happyentropy, especially on "student quality". I would love to see a ranking based on "what level of knowledge does a student need to know/expound to achieve a top quality degree in their chosen subject/major"</p>
<p>The problem with that, though i agree it would be a better indicator, is that that's extremely difficult data to gather, yet alone quantify. Studies like this must suffice and be considered with the methodology given and the source. You are absolutly right to quesiton the lack of non american schools because of the methodology, and i can agree with that. However, it is still perfectly valid for non american schools. </p>
<p>The world i live in, and certainly that the american based newsweek wishes to sell to, is america centered. Being the most powerful and successful country in teh world (in political arguments, i will only respond with silence), we center things around ourselves. also, teh beauty of capitalism, do you think a survey that most accuratly portrarys new zealand colleges would sell or inform people? Yeah...no.</p>
<p>I don't mean to sound state-centric here, but the point of the survey isn't to focus on schools just to make us feel good. It's to focus on schools that, for a lack of a better word, "matter." As much as I love New Zealand and its people, its university offerings don't really compare with the best American and British schools in an "international" sense.</p>
<p>And "knowledge" isn't the point of a college degree per se. It's about developing skills and thinking. I'd choose the person who can THINK over the person who knows stuff any day. </p>
<p>Besides, I'd pick the IITs over Beijing, if only based on their proven track record. They're just not holistic enough, unfortunately.</p>
<p>I can say without reservation that plenty of research seems to go on at Oxford--as much as at a US university, I'd say. My advisor (and he's a fairly recent hire, too) teaches maybe two mornings a week.</p>
<p>The US and Britain produce a disproportionate amount of the world's research -- especially in the sciences and economics -- and they are also the countries where university research and teaching are most closely tied. Judged by citations, the top California universities probably produce more science than the rest of the world outside of England (and perhaps even including England). See the linked graphic from a 2005 article in The Atlantic.</p>
<p>Moreover, for students who want the possibility of access to top professors, it is relevant to know which schools have the most top research regardless of whether good research is done elsewhere in the country.</p>
<p>This doesn't make non-research schools useless. After all good LACs don't show up well in these lists either.</p>
<p>But frankly, the top 100 list wouldn't be much affected by merging universities and outside research institutes, except perhaps for France and Germany and one or two places in Asia. In Econ, for instance, I believe I read a study where all of Continental Europe doesn't match England alone.</p>
<p>I don't know that much about the French system, but I do know that in Germany a lot of the good research comes out of the Max Planck Institutes, for example. (What's funny is that they're ALL named after Planck, even the ones devoted to economics or political science or whatever.)</p>
<p>Oxford produces TONS of worthwhile research, there's no doubt. But it also suffers from tons of problems with funding and somewhat troublesome structuring (well...depending on who you talk to.) I mean, it's hard to argue that American universities are the best funded. And let's face it...money makes the papers happen.</p>
<p>The Continentals don't do the whole university thing like us Anglo-Saxons do. They do the "build CERN" sorta thing. It works, as far as I can tell.</p>
<p>The Continentals have lots and lots of problems. Speaking only of Econ with which I am most familiar:</p>
<p>First, (with rare exceptions) the salary pay scales are exactly the same, so there is almost no competition between universities. If you're a lower ranked French school, you can't move a top guy from Paris by offering to triple his salary. </p>
<p>Second, junior faculty receive tenure from the moment they're hired. The result? Many publish nothing AND teach poorly. So that means they'll never be promoted which gives them even less reason to do research or teach well. Most of the great people I know in Europe are highly self-motivated to do good work, in some ways more so than in the US but there's plenty of "dead wood."</p>
<p>Third, there's almost no mobility once you've been hired. There's no way that the equivalent of an Arizona State could hire a Nobel laureate. So you are much more captive to a social elite that runs things.</p>
<p>Fourth, the state sets all the rules.</p>
<p>Combine this with poor funding for labs, libraries, etc. and you have a real mess. The exceptions have been schools like Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona which have hired internationally and use American criteria for tenure and promotion. They also run graduate programs in English not Spanish. Their econ department's productivity and international standing has also gone up dramatically in twenty years.</p>
<p>My dad was first class of Zhejiang U (China's Caltech/MIT) after the colleges were reopened to mass admission, and he told me that chinese universities have the suckiest administration compared to any american univeristy, even though the students are better. That's why Chinese universities will never get anywhere, unless they change the system.</p>
<p>Maybe things have become better recently, but they still suck.</p>
<p>I know all about this, UCLA. The amazing thing is that despite the problems, Oxbridge still top most US unis for research--after all, they're 6 and 8 on that list above. </p>
<p>My post was in response to happyentropy, in any case.</p>
