Academic Ranking of World Universities


The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is a university ranking conducted by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Center for World-Class Universities, both located in China. The 500 institutions long list is published every year, although they somehow skipped a year. The current publication is for 2010, and the 2012 ranking is expected shortly.

Interestingly enough, the ranking only looks at universities that with certain qualifying factors. To be considered for the list, an institution needs one of the following:
A Nobel laureate; a fields medallist; highly cited researchers; papers published in Nature or Science; or a high number of papers indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index. 
In practice this means that most serious institutions are evaluated, so if you are looking for the best university through the Academic Ranking of World Universities, this restriction is rather harmless.
In the ranking methodology, the laureates and Field medal winners also play a big role.

What they look at:
| Quality of Education (10%) | Quality of Faculty (40%) | Research Output (40%) | Per Capita Perfomance (10%) |

What they came up with:
1. Harvard University
2. University of California, Berkeley
3. Stanford University
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
5. University of Cambridge
6. California Institute of Technology
7. Princeton University
8. Columbia University
9. University of Chicago
10.University of Oxford

The complete list of the Academic Ranking of World Universities can be found here.

Back to The Best University Homepage

The Best University aims at bringing you the latest University Rankings and College rankings from all over the world, so you know which university is the best in your country or specialization. The ranking top 10's displayed on this website are taken from web sources, and we always link to the original source. Although we strive to only provide accurate information, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the content. Always consult multiple sources before deciding which university is the right one for you.