![]() | |
Categories | Higher education |
---|---|
Frequency | Annual |
Publisher | 2009 2003-2008: Shanghai Jiao Tong University | : Shanghai Ranking Consultancy
Founded | 2003 |
Country | People's Republic of China |
Language | English and Chinese |
Website | shanghairanking.com |
Academic Ranking of World Universities | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Simplified Chinese | 世界大学学术排名 | ||||||
Traditional Chinese | 世界大學學術排名 | ||||||
|
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, making it the first global university ranking with multifarious indicators.[1][2]
Since 2009, ARWU has been published and copyrighted annually by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, an organization focusing on higher education that is not legally subordinated to any universities or government agencies.[3] In 2011, a board of international advisory consisting of scholars and policy researchers was established to provide suggestions.[4][5] The publication currently includes global league tables for institutions as a whole and for a selection of individual subjects, alongside independent regional Greater China Ranking and Macedonian HEIs Ranking.
ARWU is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely observed university rankings, alongside QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] It has received positive feedback for its objectivity and methodology,[10][11][12] but draws wide criticism as it fails to adjust for the size of the institution, and thus larger institutions tend to rank above smaller ones.[9][13][14]
The first international rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities or Shanghai Rankings
Since 2009 the Academic Ranking of World Universities has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
France's higher education minister travelled to Jiaotong University's suburban campus last month to discuss the rankings, the Norwegian education minister came last year and the Danish minister is due to visit next month.; The idea for the rankings was born in 1998, when Beijing decreed China needed several world-leading universities.
Those two, as well as Shanghai Jiao Tong University, produce the most influential international university rankings out there
There are currently three major international rankings that receive widespread commentary: The Academic World Ranking of Universities, the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education Rankings.
The major international rankings have appeared in recent months — the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE).
ARWU presents a further data issue. Whereas in the case of the other rankings the results are adjusted to take account of the size of institutions, hardly any such adjustment is made by ARWU. So there is a distortion in favour of large institutions. If two institutions were to merge, the very fact of merger would mean that the merged institution would do nearly twice as well as either of the individual institutions prior to merger, although nothing else had changed.