by ANGEL CALDERON 

The 2022 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), released yesterday, is the 20^th consecutive year edition. The first included 500 universities from 39 countries (compared 46 in 2021). For the past four years, ARWU has published details for the best 1000 universities in the world.

Every year on August 15, ARWU has listed Harvard as the Number One university in the world.

This year’s edition included more than 2500 institutions, scrutinised by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Over the years the number of universities assessed has skyrocketed. It is worth pointing out that Shanghai Ranking also releases an annual ranking of subjects, for which it included over 1850 institutions across 96 countries in 54 subject rankings (CMM, 20 July).

There are 33 Australian universities included in the 2022 edition of ARWU, of which 24 feature in the world’s top 500, unchanged on last year. Back in 2003, there were 13 Australian universities ranked in the world’s top 500.

Australian universities performed well as expected, driven by the continued increase of Highly Cited Researchers. This is not a sustainable way to rise in global rankings.

Group of Five

Firstly, let us consider the performance for the group of five most research-intensive universities. Australia has two universities in the world’s top 50:

Melbourne U moved up one place to 32^nd globally. Since 2012, Melbourne has ranked as Australia’s top university.

Uni Queensland moved into the top 50 (47^th), rising four places from 51^st last year or 55^th in 2017. The main driver is its increased number of Highly Cited researchers, (from 34 in 2020 to 44 in 2021) (CMM, 18 November 2021).

Uni Sydney moved up nine places from 69^th to 60^th and is again ahead of UNSW. Monash U also moved up, five places to 75^th and stepped ahead of ANU which moved down three places to 79^th.

Back in 2003, ANU was Australia’s highest ranked institution at 49^th, Melbourne ranked 92^nd, whilst Uni Queensland and Uni Sydney both ranked in the 102-151 band, and Monash and UNSW were in the 152-200 group.

A key factor for ANU’s decline in ARWU is that its score in the Highly Cited Researcher indicator has decreased over time. In 2021, ANU scored 27.3 in this indicator compared to 44.7 in 2003. As a way of context, ANU had three fewer highly cited researchers in 2021 compared to 2020 (14 and 11, respectively).

As I have observed repeatedly, the absurdity of this ranking is that the ups and downs of an institution are largely attributed to the overall count of highly cited researchers.

Australian movers and shakers

This year’s big movers are:

* Uni Queensland as it breaks into the top 50.

* La Trobe U, which moves up a band, from 301-400 in 2021 to the 201-300. This is a well-deserved recognition for an institution which has relied not on Highly Cited Researchers but by its volume of articles indexed in the Web of Science and its share of publications in Nature and Science.

* Uni Tasmania which returns to the world’s top 300. Last year U Tas ranked in the 301-400 band, in an estimated 301st position. Every year between 2016 and 2020, U Tas ranked in the 201-300 band. Admittedly, Tasmania’s improvement is partly attributed to an uplift in the Highly Cited Researcher indicator as it gained three researchers – from five in 2020 to eight in 2021.

* Murdoch Uni, ranks in the 401-500 band for the first time. In the 2017 and 2019 editions, Murdoch U ranked in the 701-800 band.

This year’s results show that James Cook U moved down in band from 201-300 in 2021 to the 301-400 band. Between 2013 and 2022, James Cook U ranked four times in the 201-300 band and six times in the 301-400. Uni SA also moved down in band from the 401-500 to the 501-600 band.

Across the Tasman

Auckland Uni remains New Zealand’s highest institution in the 201-300 band. However, Auckland is stepping up its effort to break into the world’s top 200. One key development is that Auckland Uni increased its number of highly cited researchers from four in 2019 to six in 2020 and then nine in 2021.

Uni Otago is the only NZ university in the 301-400 band, followed by Uni Canterbury and Victoria Uni Wellington both in the 401-500. The other four universities (Massey, AUT, Lincoln and Waikato) are ranked outside the top 500.

Twenty years on … time for a rethink

The ARWU has achieved its key goal, to measure the relative progress of Chinese universities towards world-class status.

In 2003, there was not a single university in the PRC ranked in the world’s top 100, with the two highest institutions ranking in the 201-300 band. There are now eight in the top 100, of which three rank in the top 50: Tsinghua U ranks 26^th, followed by Peking U  at 34^th and Zhejiang U at 36^th. Most of the listed universities are supported by the World-Class Universities and World-Class Subjects Project.

This is a ranking which has an inherited bias in that it is all about measuring prestige on a narrow methodology. Over the 20 years, there has been one substantive change to its methodological construct.

In 2016, ARWU adopted a yearly update of the HiCi List, compiled by Clarivate. This annual update has added volatility to the indicator and has contributed to the inclusion of more Australian universities in the top 500. In addition, effective from 2019, ARWU has included over 2,000 researchers on the list who are considered exceptional performers across several fields.

One of the successes of the ARWU is that it was the precursor to global rankings. Over the past twenty years, it has shaped educational policy agendas. University leaders increasingly care how their university perform in the global stage and compare against peer institutions, which in turn has caused them to adjust institutional strategic directions to boost their rankings.

Most of the institutions ranked by the ARWU are assessed on four out of six indicators, but meaningfully only on three. This is because very few institutions are scored in the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Field Medals. The final indicator used by the ARWU is a per capita measure, which reflects the performance seen in the three indicators for which most institutions are assessed.

The Shanghai Ranking team has not signally there are changes under consideration. Since the start of this ranking, there has been only one substantive modifications to methodology (as noted above).

As users of this ranking, we will need to pose an important question: how do we see ourselves making use of it going ahead? Admittedly, the bibliometric data that is used to construct this ranking is derived from the Web of Science, which can be retrieved periodically. There are also several other sources of information which can help to construct a more robust picture on institutional performance.

While there are many experts who argue that global rankings should be ignored and dismantled entirely, I suspect that these types of benchmarking exercises are here to stay. In any case, we need to empower university leaders, institutional researchers, strategic planners and the like, in understanding the levers and drivers that makes an institution tick the way it does. University leaders can choose not to acknowledge global rankings and they can instead say what their institutions are good at or in what fields their universities excel. University leaders can also say how universities are contributing to solving societal challenges and how they are having a meaningful impact on the communities and jurisdictions in which they serve and operate.

 

Standing of Australian universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), selected years
Band*	Institution	2003	2018	2021	2022
Top 50	Melbourne	92	38	33	32
	Queensland	102-151	55	51	47
Top 100	Sydney	102-151	68	69	60
	UNSW	152-200	101-150	65	64
	Monash	152-200	91	80	75
	ANU	49	69	76	79
	UWA	152-200	93	96	99
Top 200	Adelaide	201-250	101-150	101-150	101-150
Top 300	Curtin		151-200	201-300	201-300
	Deakin		201-300	201-300	201-300
	Griffith		301-400	201-300	201-300
	La Trobe	401-450	301-400	301-400	201-300
	Macquarie	301-350	201-300	201-300	201-300
	QUT		201-300	201-300	201-300
	Swinburne		301-400	201-300	201-300
	Tasmania	351-400	201-300	301-400	201-300
	UTS		301-400	201-300	201-300
	Wollongong		201-300	201-300	201-300
Top 400	James Cook	401-450	201-300	201-300	301-400
	RMIT		301-400	301-400	301-400
	Newcastle	351-400	301-400	301-400	301-400
	Western Sydney		401-500	301-400	301-400
Top 500	Flinders		401-500	401-500	401-500
	Murdoch		601-700	501-600	401-500
* ARWU publishes individual ranks for the top 100 institutions. The reminder institutions are published in bands (e.g. 101-150, 151-200, 201-300 and so forth. Table compiled by the author using historical data files.

Angel Calderon is Principal Adviser, Policy and Research at RMIT