Shanghai (ARWU) World University Rankings Methodology

Shanghai World University Rankings: Rankings are an important indicator of the quality of education being meted out to students. Ranking organizations give preference to a slew of ranking indicators that determine the superiority of universities over each other. We are going to understand the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Methodology.

For their ranking, the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities takes into account universities that have Fields Medalists, Highly Cited Researchers, Nobel Laureates, papers published in Nature or Science along with a significant amount of papers indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of universities. Shanghai (ARWU) World University Rankings takes into consideration a total of 2000 universities and the best 1000 universities are published.

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Shanghai World University Rankings - Indicator

Given below is the Shanghai World University ranking parameters/indicators along with the weightage each carry. 

Criteria	Indicator	Weightage
Quality of Education	This includes Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals won by the alumni of an institution.	10%
Quality of Faculty	This includes Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals won by the staff of an institution.	20%
	Highly Cited (HiCi) Researchers	20%
Research Output	Papers published in Nature and Science	20%
	Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index	20%
Per Capita Performance	Per capita academic performance of an institution	10%

Now that we have understood the weightage of each criterion of the ranking methodology of the Shanghai World University Rankings. Let us define each criterion and what it encompasses.

Quality of Education

This includes Nobel Prizes and Fields Medal won by the alumni of an institution. Alumni, as we all know, are students who have successfully pursued a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree from the institution. Students should note that different weightage is given according to the year of obtaining degrees.

 

Quality of Faculty

This is broadly divided into Fields Medal and Nobel Prizes won by the staff of an institution and Highly Cited Researchers for a given period of time.

• Awards won by Staff: This includes the total number of staff of an institution who have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Economics, Medicine, and Physics and Fields Medal in Mathematics. The staff as we all know are individuals who have been working with the university/institution during the time of winning the award. Different weightage is given according to the year of obtaining the awards.
• Highly Cited (HiCi) Researchers: Clarivate Analytics identifies highly cited researchers and global scientific pioneers every year. Hence, the list of highly cited researchers published by Clarivate Analytics in 2019 was taken into consideration for the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World University 2020.

Research Output

This criterion is broadly divided into Papers published in Nature and Science and Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index.

• Papers Published in Nature and Science: This includes the total number of papers published in Nature and Science between 2015 and 2019 for the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World University in 2020.  Different weightage is given to author affiliation. While 100% weightage is given to corresponding author affiliation, 50% weightage is given to first author affiliation, and so on. Only publications of 'Article' type are considered. 
• Papers Indexed:  This includes the total number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and the Social Science Citation Index (SCCI) in 2019 for the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World University in 2020. Only publications of 'Article' type are considered.

Per Capita Performance

This is an average derived from the weighted scores of the above five indicators by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff. If the total number of the academic staff of a university/institution is unavailable then the weighted scores of the above five indicators are used.

This is a very modest understanding of the methodology of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for our readers. Students who are looking for an in-depth analysis can always refer to the official website or get in touch with us in the comments below for further guidance.