Most rankings are of little value for identifying trends over more that a couple of years. Changes in methodology, and sometimes a lack of access to old editions make year on year comparisons difficult or impossible. The Shanghai Rankings, aka ARWU, have maintained a generally consistent methodology over two decades and publish data going back to the founding year of 2003.
So it is possible to use ARWU to look for patterns in the world's research and higher education landscape. Here are some "winners" and "losers", based on the number of universities in the ARWU top 500 in 2004, when Shanghai changed the initial methodology to include the social sciences and 2023. This is far from a perfect measure; for a start this ranking does not takes no account of the humanities and relies to much on old Nobel and Fields laureates. Even so it does give us some idea of the shift in the academic world's centre of gravity.
Rising
Australia from 14 in 2004 to 24 in 2023 (and from 2 in the top 100 to 7)
Brazil from 4 to 5
China from 16 to 98 (and from zero in the top 100 to 11)
Malaysia from zero to one
New Zealand from 3 to 4
Saudi Arabia from zero to 6
Singapore 2 in the top 500 in 2004 and 2023 (but rising from zero in the top 100 in 2004 to 2 in 2023)
South Korea from 8 to 11
Falling
Canada from 23 to 18
France from 22 to 18
Germany from 43 to 31
India from 3 to 1
Israel from 7 to 5 (but rising from 1 to 3 in the top 100)
Italy from 24 to 16
Japan from 36 to 12 (and from 5 in the top 100 to 2)
Switzerland from 8 to 7
United Kingdom from 42 to 38 (and from 11 in the top 100 to 8)
United States from 170 to 120 (and from 51 in the top 100 to 38)
The last two decades have seen a massive increase in the research capabilities of universities in Australia, China, South Korea, and Singapore. The rest of Asia, including Japan and India, has stagnated or even fallen relatively and perhaps absolutely.
The biggest losers are the USA, UK, and Germany although Canada, France, Italy and Switzerland have also not done so well.
More recently, Saudi Arabia has noticeably improved and may soon be followed by other Middle eastern states.
