Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Nature Index: Is This the Future of Science?
The Nature Index ranks countries and institutions according to their publications in the most highly reputed scientific journals. It is a reliable guide to performance at the highest levels of research.
Here are the academic institutions in the current top 100 that have risen or fallen by ten per cent or more in the latest edition. The indicator is adjusted fractional count 2016-2017.
The 2018 world rank is on the left. The percentage increase or decrease is on the right.
I think I see a few patterns here.
Rising Institutions
14. National Institutes of Health, USA 10.0%
20. Kyoto University 15.1%
31. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 64.8%
37. National University of Singapore 10.5%
41. Indian Institutes of Technology (all of them) 28%
44. Fudan University 11.1%
61. Texas A and M University 23.7%
62. Shanghai Jiao Tong University 30.4%
68. Wuhan University 31.3%
69. University of Edinburgh 11.5%
72 University of Bristol 25.3%
74. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 20.5%
76. Sun Yat-sen University, China 26.6%
81. Xiamen University 18.7%
86. University of Utah 22.2%
95. Sichuan University 24%
98. Wurzburg Universit 19.7
Falling Institutions
11. University of Oxford -15.2%
24. Yale University -13.6%
38. University of Illinois Urbana Champagne -12%
43. EPF Lausanne -11.2%
47. University of Minnesota -15.5%
55. Leibniz Association, Germany -10%
57. Duke University -15.3%
82. Mcgill University -15.9%
84. Tohoku University -18.3%
88. Rutgers University -17.3%
89. Technical University Munich -11.6%
91, University of Zurich -11.8%
93. NASA, USA -16.5%
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1 comment:
I'm quite wary of the Nature Index, it's possibly the most volatile university ranking I've seen, and volatility is something that you've frequently highlighted as a sign of weakness in other rankings. The huge rises and falls you've highlighted would be a warning sign in any other ranking.
I presume the reason for this volatility is that institutions are ranked based on publications in highly-cited journals over the past 12 months - so a few big papers one year can send a university shooting up the rankings and a quieter year sees that same institution plunging back down. Ranking based on a longer timescale (say, papers over the last 5 or 10 years), would probably give much less dramatic movements and paint a clearer picture of the direction a university is heading over the long term.
To highlight my point, we can compare the year-to-year change in scores in the Nature Index and THE rankings for the top three ranked risers and fallers in your post (for universities I can find in both rankings):
Risers
Kyoto University: Nature: +15.1%, THE: + 3.7%
National University of Singapore: Nature: +10.5%, THE: +1.1%
Fudan University: Nature: +11.1%, THE: + 4.3%
Fallers
University of Oxford: Nature: -15.2%, THE: -0.7%
Yale University: Nature: -13.6%, THE: -0.6%
University of Illinois Urbana Champagne: Nature: -12%, THE: -0.5%
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