In case you’ve missed the barrage of excited tweets from universities, QS has released its annual subject rankings, showing which universities around the world are rated best across a selection of 36 subject areas.
This year’s tables show a mixed picture in the UK, and suggest that academic excellence is continuing to spread eastwards. But which countries are gaining ground and who is losing out?
The subject tables are dominated by US universities – again
US institutions continue to outperformed their rivals, accounting for more than a third of top 50 places. This isn’t a huge surprise – US universities also did best in the overall institution-level performance table that was released in September last year.
The top US performers are Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – one or other is ranked first across 21 subject areas.
In terms of subject areas, the US did especially well in communication and media studies – where it accounted for 30 of the top 50 institutions. It also dominated the top 50 list for statistics and operational research (24 institutions), as well as the tables for environmental sciences, earth and marine sciences and biological sciences (23 institutions each).
The UK comes second, but some institutions lose out
UK universities rank second to US institutions, accounting for 14% of the top 50 spots available. But it’s a mixed picture – of its subject entries listed, 30% have lost ground, while 18% have improved. Researchers say this is partly because newer, emerging institutions are challenging the dominant countries.
The types of UK institution that are making it to the top of the rankings has also broadened. UK universities ranked best in seven subject areas, including education, development studies, art and design, English language and literature, and business and management studies. This marks a slight improvement on 2014, where it led in five subjects – though both development studies and art and design are new categories.
This year the University of Sussex, London Business School and the Royal College of Art joined the list of UK universities to be awarded first place.
Other top performers include the University of Oxford – the only UK institution to lead in two subject areas, geography and modern languages – and the University of Cambridge, which has the highest number of disciplines ranked in the top 10. Cambridge appeared in the top 10 for 31 subject areas, whereas Oxford and Standford did so in only 29 subjects.
John O’Leary, member of the QS Global Academic Advisory Board, says UK universities do well in virtually all the subjects, but adds: “Specialist providers like the Royal College of Art and University College London’s Institute of Education are also shown to be world-leaders.”
Overall, UK universities excelled in the arts and humanities, with 17 institutions featuring in the top 30. Of these, nine were part of the Russell Group.
Chris Husbands, director of the UCL Institute of Education, which was ranked top of the education category, says the rankings show that UK higher education is punching above its weight. But he warns that the sector is changing quickly and becoming very competitive.
“Across the piece, Asian universities are rising. That’s not a surprise – levels of funding for higher education are high, and universities are a key element in the knowledge economies. The well-endowed private American universities also do well.
“But the world of higher education is shifting fast, and I suspect that in 15 years the picture will look different.”
Is academic excellence moving eastwards?
Asian universities are continuing to emerge as competitors to the US and UK, according to Ben Sowter, head of research at QS. He says that institutions in the region are much more strongly represented than last year, with 70 additional places across the subjects occupied by universities from China and Hong Kong.
“China in particular has been investing heavily in research productivity over the past 10 years, and quality is beginning to follow. China has recently become the world’s largest economy, and more and more universities across the world are keen to partner with Chinese universities.”
It’s not just China that’s improving its standing, he adds. “There are institutions in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan that have been very driven over the past few years and, in most cases, well funded. The partnerships that they’ve been building with institutions in the west have helped slingshot them into higher positions.”
But Africa is also making its mark on the tables, according to Sowter who says that the introduction of new subject areas, such as development studies, is revealing new areas of academic excellence. “We’ve introduced more subjects and so are now looking through a more powerful lens. There are nine African universities in the top 100 for development studies, including universities in Uganda, Kenya and Egypt as well as South Africa.”
It’s more difficult to see which countries are falling behind, according to Sowter. “Over the course of the last five years or so, we’re seeing some continental European universities not doing as well as they might. The economic situation in southern Europe has set institutions back a little bit.”
How is the data collected?
The subject rankings are based on research citations from Scopus data – this includes analysis from 17.3 million research papers and over 100 million citations – alongside reputational surveys of over 126,000 academics and graduate employers worldwide.
This year, QS introduced six new subjects to the rankings: business and management, architecture, art & design, dentistry, development studies and veterinary science.
- This article was amended on 30 April to correct the number of subject areas that UK universities ranked top in. It previously said that UK universities ranked best in the world for six subject areas, this is actually the case for seven subjects
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