The document outlines the methodology used in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). It discusses the history and development of ARWU since 2003. It describes the selection criteria including alumni awards, staff awards, highly cited researchers, papers in Nature and Science, total papers, and per capita performance. It also summarizes the results, features and impact of ARWU, and considers future directions including subject rankings, improvements to the methodology, and profiling of universities.

1. Methodology of Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)Dr. Ying CHENG Center for World-Class UniversitiesGraduate School of EducationShanghai Jiao Tong University3 December, 2010Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

2. OutlineHistoryMethodologyResults and AnalysisFeatures and ImpactFuture

3. HISTORY

4. Chinese Dream of WCUWorld-Class University (WCU) is a dream for generations of Chinese. It’s not only for pride, but also for the future of China.

5. Since 1990s, Chinese government has launched several initiatives for research universities. The best-known one is specially designed to build WCU (985 Project).

6. Many top Chinese universities had setup their strategic goals as WCU. Most of them have also set time tables for reaching the goals. Questions About WCUWhat is the definition and criteria for a WCU

7. How many WCU should there be in the world?

8. What are the positions of top Chinese universities in the world?

9. How can Chinese universities improve themselves to reach the goal of WCU?Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)2003

10. 2004

11. 2005

12. 2006

13. 2007

14. 2008

15. 2009

16. 2010Find out the positions of top Chinese Universities in the world higher education systemProvide one source of information for the global comparison of universitiesTransparent methodology

17. Objective indicators

18. Third-party dataAcademic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields (ARWU-FIELD)2007, 2008, 2009, 2010Five Broad Subject FieldsNatural Sciences and Mathematics (SCI)

19. Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences (ENG)

20. Life and Agriculture Sciences (LIFE)

21. Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy (MED)

22. Social Sciences (SOC) Academic Ranking of World Universities by Subject Fields (ARWU-SUBJECT)2009, 2010Five Subject FieldsMathematics

23. Physics

24. Chemistry

25. Computer Sciences

26. Economics / BusinessMETHODOLOGY

27. Selection of UniversitiesAny university that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medals, Highly Cited Researchers, or papers in Nature or Science

28. Major universities of every country with significant amount of papers indexed by Citation Indexes of ThomsonNumber of universities actually ranked 1200 Number of universities publishedTop 500Top 100Top 100Number of universities scanned> 2000ARWUARWU-FIELDARWU-SUBJECT

29. Criteria and Weights of ARWU*: For institutions specialized in humanities and social sciences such as London School of Economics, N&S is not considered and the weight of N&S is relocated to other indicators

30. 12Definition of Indicator: AlumniThe weighted number of the alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals.

31. Alumni are defined as those who obtain bachelor, Master’s or doctoral degrees from the institution.

32. Different weights are set according to the periods of obtaining degrees. The weight is 100% for alumni of 1991-2000, 90% for alumni of 1981-1990, 80% for alumni of 1971-1980, and so on.

33. If a person obtains more than one degrees from an institution, the institution is considered once only. 13Definition of Indicator: AwardThe weighted number of the staff of an institution winning Nobel prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics and Fields Medal in Mathematics.

34. Staff is defined as those who work at an institution at the time of winning the prize.

35. Different weights are set according to the periods of winning the prizes. The weight is 100% for winners since 2001, 90% for winners in 1991-2000, 80% and so on.

36. If a winner is affiliated with more than one institution, each institution is assigned the reciprocal of the number of institutions.

37. For Nobel prizes, if a prize is shared by more than one person, weights are set for winners according to their proportion of prize. 14Definition of Indicator: HiCiThe number of highly cited researchers in 21 categories.

38. The definition of categories and detailed procedures can be found at the website of Highlycited.com.

39. The total number of HiCi is about 6000, about 4000 of which are university staff.15Definition of Indicator: N&SThe weighted number of papers published in Nature and Science in the past five years.

40. To distinguish the order of author affiliation, a weight of 100% is assigned for corresponding author, 50% for first author (second author if the first author is the same as corresponding author), 25% for the next author, and 10% for other authors.

41. Only publications of Article and Proceedings Paper type are considered. 16Definition of Indicator: PUBTotal number of papers indexed in Science Citation Index-expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) on the previous year.

42. A weight of 2 is assigned to articles indexed in SSCI to compensate the bias against social sciences.