The University Ranking by Academic Performance was first published in 2009 by the Informatics Institute at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. It is a research based ranking with six indicators measuring publications, citations and international collaboration covering altogether 23 fields.
As might be expected, Harvard is first in more fields, twelve in all, than any other university, while Oxford remains at the top in the humanities, holding first place in History and Archaeology and Philosophy and Religious Studies.  Science subjects are the domain of Californian universities with the California Institute of Technology first for Physical Sciences, University of California Berkeley for Chemical Sciences and Environmental Sciences, and University of California Davis for Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences. More...

Another edition of the ARWU Shanghai ranking brings another top-score performance of US universities. On the overall list of top 500 universities in 2014, US institutions take up 146 places and 16 of them are amongst the top 20. Just like every year, Harvard tops the list, followed by Stanford in the 2nd, MIT in the 3rd and Berkeley in the 4th place, and then come other usual suspects. The four high-scorers outside the US are European: Cambridge still at number 5, Oxford at the 9th place and the Swiss ETH Zurich at 19th, both up one place since last year. The University College London is again after 3 years among the top 20, leaving behind the University of Tokyo and adding up to the UK top 20 score.
Europe is represented by 205 universities overall - 5 more than last year - as well as by 5 more among the top 200 (80). Most European institutions come from Germany (39) and the UK (38), followed by France and Italy with 21 universities each in the top 500 list. KU Leuven and University of Amsterdam are two European universities to appear for the first time amongst the top 100 universities on the Shanghai scoreboard. China is still the second most represented country after the US. With 44 universities this year – 2 more than in 2013 - it shows a continual increase over years. However, it still needs to pave its way to the top 100 group, which - apart from the US and Europe - hosts universities from Australia (4), Canada (4), Japan (3) and Israel (2).  Out of 10 Latin American universities on the overall list, the highest ranked ones are the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Buenos Aires, but neither made it to the top 100. African universities are still fewest – only 5. The only two African countries represented in the ranking are South Africa with 4 and Egypt with 1 institution. Australia scores quite consistently. For the fourth year in a row, 19 Australian institutions appear among top 500 institutions. Their number among top 100 has been fluctuating between 3 and 5 in the last five years but, in general, no major shifts have taken place. More...

By Max Kutner. Northeastern University executed one of the most dramatic turnarounds in higher education. Its recipe for success? A single-minded focus on just one list.
From the start, schools have argued that the rankings are subjective. Defenders of the rankings maintain that the system exposes students to more schools and helps the consumer compare products. Regardless, students, graduate schools, and employers have embraced the list, giving it unprecedented power. An unintended result, however, is that schools need to spend more to stay competitive in the categories that U.S. News considers important. Universities may be in the business of education, but it’s a competitive business in which all compete for students and revenue. With an arms race to the top, higher education has soared out of reach for an increasing number of Americans. NU tuition alone in 1989 was $9,500; today it’s $42,534. More...

STRASBOURG 95e au classement mondial de Shanghai. L’université résumée en un chiffre ?
L’Université de Strasbourg (Unistra) est la seule de France (hors Paris) à figurer dans le Top 100 du classement international de Shanghai ( DNA d’hier). Bon résultat selon son président, Alain Beretz, qui voit quand même un sacré revers à la médaille. Voir l'article...

The latest Scimago Institutions Rankings show that, when sheer quantity of research is considered, non-university research centres are increasingly important. For production of papers, the top three places go to the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences while several government research centres, medical institutes and hospitals can be found in the top 100 of the Production indicator. Looking at the ranking of universities only, the top 20 for output of papers show that American dominance is becoming less pronounced while the Chinese presence is more noticeable.
There are eight US, four Chinese, three British and two Japanese institutions among the top 20 universities with one each from Canada, Brazil and France. The first five places go to Harvard, Tokyo, Toronto, Sao Paulo and Tsinghua.
Source SCIMAGO Institutions Rankings.

By Paul Clarke. Ranked 24th globally, U of T has strongest showing among Canadian universities, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
The University of Toronto moved up four spots to 24th in the world and remains the best university in Canada, that’s according to an annual report published Friday by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. More...

In the top ten of the 2014 edition of Academic Ranking of World Universities, better known as the Shanghai Rankings there are no surprises. Harvard is first, followed by Stanford. Berkeley, now fourth, and MIT, now third, have changed places. A little further down, the biggest change is the University of Wisconsin – Madison, which has slipped from 19th to 24th place.
Newcomers to the rankings include Universiti Sains Malaysia and Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Another success story is King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, which has risen from the 200-300 band to the 150-200 mainly because of high scores for Publications and Highly Cited Researchers.
The rankings have six indicators: Alumni winning Nobel and Fields awards, Faculty winning these awards, Highly Cited Researchers, papers in Nature and Science, publications in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science index, and Productivity per Capita.
Source
Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014 Press Release
Academic Ranking of World Universities. More...