Alternative Shanghai Rankings: Asia gains, Germany and France lose

Many observers have noticed that some universities enjoy a big advantage in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), better known as the Shanghai rankings, because of Fields Medals in mathematics and Nobel prizes in three sciences and economics. Now, the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has produced an Alternate Ranking from which the Awards and Alumni indicators have been deleted.
A little further down, Oxford, which has strengths in the arts and humanities, rises from 9th to 6th place while Cambridge, noted for research in the natural sciences, falls from 5th to 8th.
Among the universities that suffer disproportionately from the exclusion of the Nobel and Fields awards are Princeton, Moscow Lomonosov State University and University of Paris Sud (Paris 11). Several other continental European universities and Ivy League schools also lose out.
Source
Academic Ranking of World Universities. More...