Academic Ranking of World Universities

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published annually by Shanghai Jiao Tong University is based on six quantifiable indicators, including the number of scientific publications in Nature and Science, which are seen as the leading science magazines, as well as the number of researchers cited particularly frequently. These research-oriented criteria favor universities with an intense specialization in the natural sciences, life sciences and medicine. The methodology is also accompanied by a high degree of stability, making it easier to compare the results from year to year.

CWTS Leiden Ranking

The Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) is a renowned spin-off by Leiden University that specializes on bibliometric studies. Since 2008 it has been publishing a ranking that is exclusively based on the bibliometric analysis of citations using the bibliographic database Web of Science. It ranks universities worldwide by number of academic publications according to the volume and citation impact of the publications at those institutions. The methodology has been continuously refined and the latest edition now allows an evaluation according to different fields, countries and indicators. As the preferred indicator, CWTS recommends the share of publications of an institution that belong to the top 10% of the most often cited publications of their respective field. An institution's development can be traced over the past six years for each indicator.

QS World University Rankings

This quality comparison, which has been published annually by the Quacarelli Symonds (QS) company since 2010, is based 40 percent on the subjective estimations of academic peers and 10 percent on how potential employers view the university. This methodology results in considerable fluctuations in the rankings from year to year. Only about half of the performance indicators factored into the ranking are objective and quantifiable. The staff-to-student ratio has a weighting factor of 20 percent, and the analysis of citations in academic publications also forms 20 percent. Another 10 percent is based on the internationality of the students and lecturers.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

First published in 2004 by the magazine Times Higher Education (THE), this ranking has been conducted in cooperation with the Thomson Reuters company and has been using a modified method since the 2010/2011 edition. About one third is based on subjective ratings given by academic peers, which contributes to the high degree of fluctuation in the rankings from year to year. Another third of the results is based on the analysis of academic publications, measuring how often an article is recognized in the form of citations. The final third is based on the evaluation of information given by staff, students and on the financial resources from the universities themselves.