Author: ARWU, Wednesday, August 15, 2012, Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University today released the 10th edition of its annual global university ranking -
2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Harvard University remains the number one in the world for the tenth year.
The Top 10 universities are: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Cambridge, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago and Oxford. University of Tokyo in Japan is back to Top 20 (20th) and tops other Asian universities. ETH Zurich (23rd) in Switzerland takes first place in Continent Europe, followed by Paris-Sud (37th) and Pierre and Marie Curie (42nd) in France.
Israel and Australia have increased the number of Top 100 universities this year. With Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (78th) and Weizmann Institute of Science (93rd) entering the Top 100 for the very first time, three Israeli universities are listed among Top 100. The University of Western Australia’s first appearance in Top 100 (96th) increases the number of Top 100 universities in Australia to 5, which is the 3rd highest number across all countries.
Five universities in China and four in other countries move into the Top 500 for the first time. As a result, China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) now has 42 universities in the Top 500, overtaking the UK which has 38 universities in the Top 500 - second in the world. However, none of the Chinese universities are ranked among the Top 100 yet. With the University of Belgrade now in the Top 500, Serbia becomes the 43rd country on the ARWU list.
The Center for World-Class Universities also released the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields (ARWU-FIELD) and 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Subject Field (ARWU-SUBJECT). This year the ranking lists include 200 universities instead of 100. The best five universities in each ranked FIELD and SUBJECT are:
Natural Sciences and Mathematics – Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, Caltech and MIT
Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences – MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UIUC and UT Austin
Life and Agriculture Sciences – Harvard, MIT, UC San Francisco, Cambridge and Washington (Seattle)
Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy – Harvard, UC San Francisco, Washington (Seattle), Johns Hopkins and Columbia
Social Sciences – Harvard, Chicago, Berkeley, MIT and Columbia
Mathematics – Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, Cambridge and Stanford
Physics – Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton and Caltech
Chemistry – Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Cambridge and ETH Zurich
Computer Science – Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton and Harvard
Economics/Business – Harvard, Chicago, MIT, Berkeley and Columbia.
The complete lists and detailed methodologies can be found at the Academic Ranking of World Universities website at
http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.
Besides the ARWU, a comprehensive benchmarking tool – Global Research University Profile (GRUP) was developed by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy for enabling comprehensive and in-depth comparisons of global research universities. Based on the data reported by nearly 450 research universities in the world, GRUP presents comparisons of universities in different rank ranges and/or in different countries in terms of more than 30 indicators about students, faculty and resources. GRUP also provides statistics of ARWU ranking data for universities in different ranking/geographic groups, allowing users to learn about the performance of their local and international peers for various purposes. The GRUP is available online at
http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU): Starting from 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world top 500 universities annually based on a set of objective indicators and third-party data. ARWU has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy ranking. ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of Highly Cited Researchers, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance. More than 1200 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published.
Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CWCU): CWCU is dedicated to the theoretical and policy study of World-Class Universities with a more than 25-year history. CWCU initiated the "International Conference on World-Class Universities" in 2005 and organizes the conference every second year, which attracts hundreds of participants, including university presidents, government officials, top scholars and policy researchers, from more than 40 countries. CWCU endeavors to build databases of major research universities in the world and a clearinghouse of literature on World-Class Universities, and provides consultations for governments and universities.
Website: http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.
Contact: Dr.Ying CHENG at contact@shanghairanking.com.