The Times Higher Education Supplement

The Times Higher Education Supplement, also known as The Times Higher or The THES for short, is a newspaper based in London that reports specifically on issues related to higher education. It is owned by TSL Education, which was, until October 2005, a division of News International. The paper is edited by John O'Leary, author of The Times Good University Guide. The THES is probably best known for publishing The Times Higher World University Rankings (see college and university rankings), which first appeared in November 2004 [1], with new rankings published annually.

About the World University Rankings

In both the 2004 and 2005 rankings, institutions from the United States and the United Kingdom had a virtual monopoly over the highest positions in many of the tables. One explanation for this is the pre-eminence of the English language in modern academia, especially in scientific and technological research, which allows English-speaking institutions to attract some of the best students and researchers from around the world, as well as publish more easily in leading international science journals, many of which are written in English and are rarely translated in their entirety into other languages. The highest-ranked universities in the United States also tend to have the greatest financial resources of any such institutions in the world. Harvard, which notably tops several of the lists is, by some distance, the world's richest university.

There have been more cynical suggestions that this bias towards English-speaking universities is due to the fact that The THES is a British newspaper. Although all university league tables contain subjective elements, are often simplistic, and are also arguably misleading, this particular accusation seems unfounded. Another worldwide ranking of universities [2] (based on quite different criteria) compiled by academics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China showed a similar bias, most likely for the reasons given above.

General rankings

As of late October 2005, the THES is in the process of publishing its 2005 rankings online. The universities rated in the top 20 worldwide overall are listed below (previous year's position in brackets):

Harvard University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge University

Oxford University

Stanford University

University of California, Berkeley

Yale University

California Institute of Technology

Princeton University

Ecole Polytechnique

Duke University

London School of Economics

Imperial College London

Cornell University

Beijing University

Tokyo University

University of California, San Francisco

University of Chicago

Melbourne University

Columbia University

Some of the 2004 rankings are given below:

Top universities overall (worldwide)

Rank	Institution	Country	Score (out of 1000)
1	Harvard University	USA	1000.0
2	University of California, Berkeley	USA	880.2
3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	USA	788.9
4	California Institute of Technology	USA	738.9
5	University of Oxford	UK	731.8
6	University of Cambridge	UK	725.4
7	Stanford University	USA	688.0
8	Yale University	USA	582.8
9	Princeton University	USA	557.5
10	ETH Zurich	Switzerland	553.7
11	London School of Economics	UK	484.4
12	Tokyo University	Japan	482.0
13	University of Chicago	USA	444.0
14	Imperial College London	UK	443.7
15	University of Texas at Austin	USA	421.5
16	Australian National University	Australia	417.7
17	Peking University	China	391.8
18	National University of Singapore	Singapore	385.9
19	Columbia University	USA	384.1
20	University of California, San Francisco	USA	376.5

Top universities overall (by peer review)

This ordering of universities worldwide was determined by questioning a group of 1,300 academics in 88 countries, who were asked which institutions they thought were best in the fields they felt qualified to comment on (hence the ranking was determined by a sort of peer review). Although subjective, this peer review score was the single most important factor in determining overall university rankings.

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 1000)
1 University of California, Berkeley USA 665
2 Harvard University USA 643
3 University of Oxford UK 560
4 University of Cambridge UK 541
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 484
6 Stanford University USA 420
7 University of Tokyo Japan 371
8 Princeton University USA 353
9 Yale University USA 347
10 Peking University China 322

Specific rankings

Top universities worldwide for arts and humanities

Rank Institution Country Score (maximum score unknown)
1 Harvard University USA 41.83
2 University of Oxford UK 30.99
3 University of California, Berkeley USA 29.86
4 Yale University USA 27.68
5 University of Cambridge UK 26.04
6 Princeton University USA 22.14
7 Peking University China 18.32
8 Columbia University USA 17.70
9 University of Tokyo Japan 14.42
10 London School of Economics UK 12.94

Top universities worldwide for engineering and IT

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 200)
1 University of California, Berkeley USA 200.00
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 191.15
3 Stanford University USA 150.71
4 Indian Institutes of Technology India 149.34
5 Imperial College London UK 137.87
6 California Institute of Technology USA 123.99
7 University of Tokyo Japan 121.46
8 University of Cambridge UK 116.46
9 National University of Singapore Singapore 106.50
10 Peking University China 102.42

Top universities worldwide for biomedicine

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 200)
1 Harvard University USA 200.00
2 University of Cambridge UK 179.39
3 University of Oxford UK 165.32
4 Imperial College London UK 139.28
5 Stanford University USA 133.05
6 Johns Hopkins University USA 116.48
7 Karolinska Institute Sweden 112.18
8 Yale University USA 90.95
9 University of California, Berkeley USA 84.70
10 University of California, San Diego USA 78.84

Top universities worldwide by research impact

This ranking was determined by the number of citations per faculty member that universities received.

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 400)
1 California Institute of Technology USA 400
2 University of California, San Francisco USA 300
3 ETH Zurich Switzerland 266
4 Harvard University USA 243
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 221
6 University of California, San Diego USA 208
7 University of Texas at Austin USA 202
8 Stanford University USA 197
9 University of California, Berkeley USA 169
10 Princeton University USA 133

Top universities worldwide for science

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 200)
1 University of Cambridge UK 200.0
2 University of Oxford UK 169.8
3 Harvard University USA 159.8
4 University of California, Berkeley USA 159.0
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 135.1
6 Stanford University USA 118.7
7 University of Tokyo Japan 118.5
8 Princeton University USA 115.6
9 California Institute of Technology USA 99.3
10 Imperial College London UK 89.8

Top universities worldwide for social sciences

Rank Institution Country Score (out of 200)
1 Harvard University USA 200.00
2 London School of Economics UK 185.25
3 University of California, Berkeley USA 163.26
4 University of Oxford UK 157.00
5 University of Chicago USA 131.96
6 Stanford University USA 122.99
7 Yale University USA 110.10
8 University of Cambridge UK 100.37
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 100.02
10 National University of Singapore Singapore 82.14

Top universities worldwide by staffing level

This ranking was determined by the level of attention that students receive from university faculty members (as measured by the ratio of faculty members to students), as well as the number of international faculty staff and students.

Rank Institution Country International Faculty Score International Students Score Student/Faculty Score
1 École Normale Supérieure France 11 22 100
2 Johns Hopkins University USA 16 13 68
3 Yale University USA 53 20 65
4 University of Chicago USA 31 18 58
5 Duke University USA 12 11 56
6 Columbia University USA 10 18 56
7 Imperial College London UK 60 51 55
8 Harvard University USA 17 17 50
9 Case Western Reserve University USA 4 11 49
10 University of Rochester USA 10 8 49

The meaning of the above ranking is unclear. For example, Duke scores higher than Columbia in the Faculty category, but lower in the Students category, with both universities equal in the Student/Faculty category. Duke is placed above Columbia, which might make it sensible to assume that the Faculty category carries more weight. However, Case Western Reserve scores lower on the Faculty category and higher on the Students category than Rochester, but is placed above it.

External link

Offical THES Website (subscription is required to access much of the site)
THES World University Rankings