Blockchain Research Ranking

Blockchain, we are told, is poised to reshape global finance. That may be premature but it is beginning to look as though it will have a significant impact. Recent announcements by China and the United States indicate that blockchain technology will become an important part of international and national financial systems over the next few years.

In 2023 CoinDesk published a ranking of the best international universities for blockchain. The indicators were Scholarly Impact, Campus Blockchain Offerings, Employment and Industry Outcomes, and Academic Reputation. The rankings were led by Hong Kong Polytechnic University followed by the National University of Singapore and the University of Zurich. If we look at the research, the top three are Sun Yat-sen University, Nanyang Technological University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Since there has been no new edition of the CoinDesk ranking, the following ranking has been compiled. It consists only of publications in Scopus and Web of Science between 2020 and 2024. Universities have been ranked according to the number of publications in Scopus indexed journals.

Non-academic institutions and departments and colleges that are not linked to an institution have been excluded. Academic institutions with 100 or more publications in Scopus between 2020 and 2024 are included.

The current ranking shows that Mainland China is clearly the leader for blockchain research and that India, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia have also performed well. Of the top ten universities for Scopus publications, seven are located in Mainland China, one in Hong Kong, one in India, and one in Saudi Arabia. The best American university is the University of Texas at San Antonio, which is in 59^th place.

 

  

Scopus rank	Institution	Country	Scopus Affiliation 2020-2024	WOS 2020-2024 affiliation
1	Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications	China	731	45
2	Chinese Academy of Sciences	China	594	66
3	University of Electronic Science and Technology of China	China	490	43
4	Xidian University	China	458	46
5	SRM Institute of Science and Technology	India	359	20
6	The Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong	350	38
7	Beijing Institute of Technology	China	331	33
8	Beihang University	China	329	19
9	King Saud University	KSA	319	54
10	Tsinghua University	China	315	21
11	University of Chinese Academy of Sciences	China	313	23
12	Vellore Institute of Technology	India	309	48
13	Amity University	India	305	--
14	Sun Yat-Sen University	China	300	20
15	Southeast University	China	290	30
16	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China	287	35
17	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	279	40
18	Zhejiang University	China	277	24
19	Lovely Professional University	India	276	14
20	Wuhan University	China	270	24
21=	Beijing Jiaotong University	China	262	19
21=	Chandigarh University	India	262	--
23	Beijing University of Technology	China	247	16
24	Chitkara University, Punjab	India	242	--
25	Guangzhou University	China	241	18
26	Graphic Era Deemed to be University	India	234	--
27	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China	223	24
28	K L Deemed to be University	India	220	--
29	Nanjing University of Post and Telecommunications	China	216	19
30=	King Abdulaziz University	KSA	211	33
30=	Nirma University, Institute of Technology	India	211	38
32	Peking University	China	210	--
33	Nirma University	India	206	38
34=	Shenzhen University	China	205	29
34=	University of Petroleum and Energy Studies	India	205	35
36	UNSW Sydney	Australia	200	42
37	Khalifa University of Science and Technology	UAE	195	19
38	University of Technology Sydney	Australia	193	35
39	Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications	China	192	27
40	Qatar University	Qatar	190	24
41	Northeastern University	China	189	15
42	Symbiosis International (Deemed University)	India	188	17
43	Guilin University of Electronic Technology	China	186	13
44	Deakin University	Australia	184	37
45	Thapar Institute of Engineering Technology	India	181	27
46	Hainan University	China	179	10
47	Xi'an Jiaotong University	China	177	25
48	COMSATS University Islamabad	Pakistan	176	23
49	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	175	18
50	Tianjin University	China	174	13
51	National University of Defense Technology China	China	173	--
52	Institute of Information Engineering	India	170	--
53	Guangdong University of Technology	China	166	23
54	Uttaranchal University	India	163	--
55	Shandong University	China	162	--
56	Nanjing University of Information Science Technology	China	161	34
57	Galgotias University	India	160	--
58	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics	China	159	24
59	The University of Texas at San Antonio	USA	157	27
60	Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences	India	156	--
61=	Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet	Norway	153	--
61=	Bina Nusantara University	Indonesia	153	--
63	University College London	UK	151	27
64	East China Normal University	China	150	--
65	RMIT University	Australia	149	24
66=	Qilu University of Technology	China	148	10
66=	Harbin Institute of Technology	China	148	14
68	Hunan University	China	145	--
69=	Nanjing University	China	143	--
69=	Saveetha School of Engineering	India	143	--
71	The University of Sydney	Australia	141	16
72=	Old Dominion University	USA	138	17
72=	Fudan University	China	138	10
74=	University of Science and Technology of China	China	133	10
74=	North China Electric Power University	China	133	--
76	Xi'an Institute of Posts and Telecommunications	China	131	--
77=	Taif University	KSA	129	20
77=	Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai	India	129	28
79	Queensland University of Technology	China	128	14
80=	The University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong SAR	126	10
80=	Nanjing University of Science and Technology	China	126	22
80=	University of Waterloo	Canada	126	--
80=	Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology	India	126	--
84	Monash University	Australia	125	15
85=	University College Dublin	Ireland	123	20
85=	University of Science and Technology Beijing	China	123	10
85=	Chongqing University	China	123	19
88	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	122	16
89=	Technische Universität Berlin	Berlin	119	--
89=	National University of Singapore	Singapore	119	23
89=	Shanghai University	China	119	13
92	Fujian Normal University	China	118	10
93	University of Sfax	Tunisia	117	13
94=	Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani	India	116	25
94=	Christ University	India	116	--
96	Anna University	India	114	--
97=	Lebanese American University	Lebanon	113	30
97=	Macau University of Science and Technology	Macau SAR	113	24
99	Asia University	Taiwan	112	17
100	École de Technologie Supérieure	Canada	110	13
101=	University of Johannesburg	South Africa	109	28
101=	South China University of Technology	China	109	10
101=	Graphic Era Hill University	India	109	--
104=	ETH Zürich	Switzerland	108	--
104=	Carlos Alvarez College of Business	USA	108	--
106=	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	107	21
106=	JAIN (Deemed-to-be University)	India	107	--
106=	Imperial College London	UK	107	14
109=	Università degli Studi di Salerno	Italy	106	10
109=	Sichuan University	China	106	11
109=	Carleton University	Canada	106	20
109=	Technische Universität München	Germany	106	11
109=	Tongji University	China	106	--
109=	Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University	KSA	106	20
115=	Guizhou University	China	105	--
115=	Jazan University	KSA	105	--
117=	Universität Zürich	Switzerland	103	12
117=	Università degli Studi di Cagliari	Italy	103	--
119=	Umm Al-Qura University	KSA	102	14
119=	Technische Universität Wien	Austria	102	--
121=	The University of British Columbia	Canada	101	14
121=	University of Luxembourg	Luxemburg	101	11
121=	Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University	KSA	101	16
124=	International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad	India	100	--
124=	Università di Pisa	Italy	100	--
124=	Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences	China	100	--
124=	Sharda University	India	100	--

 

 

Search dates

Search in Keyword for blockchain

Scopus 27 February

 

Search in keyword plus for blockchain

WOS 01 march

 

China, AI, and Rankings

Recently we have seen the crumbling of many illusions. It now seems hard to believe but only a few weeks ago we were assured that President Biden was as sharp as a fiddle or as fit as a tack or something. Also, the Russian economy was collapsing under the weight of Western sanctions. Or again, the presidential race was running neck and neck, and probably heading for a decisive Democrat vote, foretold by that state-of-the-art poll from Iowa.

An equally significant illusion was the supremacy of Western, especially Anglophone, science and scholarship. The remarkable growth of Asian research has often been dismissed as imitative and uncreative and anyway much less important than the amazing things Western universities are doing for sustainability and diversity.

The two big UK rankings, THE and QS, highly regarded by governments and media, have been instrumental in the underestimation of Chinese science and the overestimation of that of the West. Oxford is in first place in the THE world rankings and no other, while MIT leads the QS world rankings and no other. Indeed, Leiden Ranking, probably the most respected ranking among actual researchers, has them in 25^th and 91^st place for publications. 

The myopia of the Western rankers has been revealed by recent events in the world of AI. The release of the large language model (LLM) DeepSeek has caused much soul searching among western academics and scientists. It looks as good as Chat GPT and the others, probably better, and, it seems, very much cheaper. There will likely be more to come in the near future. The researchers and developers were mainly “researchers and developers from China’s elite universities, with minimal overseas education,” according to DeepSeek itself, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Beihang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Nanjing University. There are some overseas links, Monash, Stanford, Texas, but these are less significant.

Some of the anguish or the excitement may be premature. DeepSeek may inspire another Sputnik moment, although that does seem rather unlikely at the moment, and Western companies and institutions may surge ahead again. Also, I suspect, the cheapness may have been exaggerated. Like its western counterparts, DeepSeek has places that it would prefer not to go to – Tiananmen Square and the Uighurs among others – and that could undermine its validity in the long run.

But it is a remarkable achievement nonetheless and it is yet another example of the emerging technological prowess of the Chinese economy. We have seen China build a network of high-speed railways. Compare that with the infamous Los Angeles to San Francisco railroad. Compare China’s military modernization with the state of European navies and armies.

We might add, compare the steady advance of Chinese universities in the output and quality of research and innovation compared to the stagnation and decline of western academia. The main western rankers, THE and QS, have consistently rated  American and British universities more favourably than those in Asia, especially China. Recently it seems that the two dominant rankers have been doing their best to lend a hand to western universities while holding back those in Asia. THE started their Impact rankings with the intention of allowing universities to show the wonderful things they are doing to promote sustainability, an opportunity that has been seized by some Canadian, Australian, and British universities but totally ignored by China. QS has introduced a new sustainability indicator into its world rankings, in which Chinese universities do not do well.

 

AI Rankings

QS and THE have been especially unobservant about the rise of China in computer science, and more specifically in the field of AI. This is in contrast to those rankings based largely on research and derived from public verifiable data.

There are currently four rankings that focus on AI. QS has a ranking for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and it is very much dominated by Western universities. The top 20 includes 10 US institutions and none from Mainland China, although it does include the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is in first place and the best Mainland university is Tongji in 36^th = place.

Now let’s look at EduRank, a rather obscure firm, probably located in California, whose methodology might be based on publications, citations and other metrics. Here the top 20 for AI has 15 US universities, with Stanford University in first place. The best performing Chinese university is Tsinghua at 9^th place.  

University Ranking of Academic Performance (URAP) is published by the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Their most recent  AI ranking has Tsinghua in first place with Carnegie Mellon in 10^th. The top 20 has 12 Mainland universities and only three American.

The US News Best Global Universities ranking for AI is even more emphatic in its assertion of Chinese superiority. Twelve out of the top 20 universities for AI are Mainland Chinese, with Tsinghua at number one. The best US university was Carnegie Mellon University in 29^th  place, well behind a few universities from Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

 

Computer Science Rankings

Turning to the broader field of Computer Science, the THE Computer Science rankings have Oxford in first place, MIT in third, and Peking University in twelfth. Similarly, QS has a Computer Science and Information Systems subject ranking, the most recent edition of which shows MIT first, Oxford fourth, and Tsinghua eleventh.

In contrast, in the National Taiwan University Computer Science Rankings Tsinghua is first, Stanford seventh, and Oxford 171^st (!). According to the Scimago Institutions Rankings for universities, Tsinghua is first for Computer Science,  MIT 9^th,  Oxford 22^nd.  The Iran-based ISC World University Rankings for Computer and Information Sciences place Tsinghua first, MIT 11^th, and Oxford 18^th. In the US News Best Global Universities Computer Science and Engineering ranking Tsinghua is first, MIT fifth, and Oxford 18^th.

In the Shanghai subject rankings MIT is still just ahead of Tsinghua, mainly because of the World Class Output metric which includes international academic awards since 1991.

It seems then that QS, THE, and EduRank have significantly exaggerated the capabilities of elite Western universities in AI and Computer Science generally and underestimated those of Chinese and other Asian schools. It seems ironic that THE and, to a lesser extent, QS are regarded as arbiters of excellence while URAP, Scimago, the National Taiwan University rankings, and even US News are largely ignored.

 

 

Comments on the New Edition of the THE Reputation Rankings

Times Higher Education (THE) have just published the latest edition of their World Reputation Rankings. At the top, it is business as usual. We have the big six super brands, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Cambridge, and Berkeley. After that, there are no real surprises. The top fifty includes  Ivy League schools like Princeton and Yale, rising Asian giants like Tsinghua, Tokyo and the National University of Singapore, established European institutions like LMU Munich and KU Leuven, and well-known London colleges, LSE and UCL.

But then things start to get interesting. THE has introduced some drastic methodological changes, and these have led to a significant amount of churning.   

A bit of context, last year, the reputation rankings recorded an apparently remarkable achievement by nine Arab universities that came into the top 200 from nowhere. Later, THE announced that they had discovered a "syndicate" that was trading votes in the reputation surveys and that measures would be taken to stop that and penalise the universities involved.

But THE was not satisfied with that, and they have revamped its methodology to include two new metrics in addition to the simple counting of votes for best universities for teaching and research.

The first of these is pairwise comparison. This means, according to THE, that universities are preselected "informed from their publication history," and respondents then place them in order from 1 to 5, thus encouraging them to consider places other than the super brands. Exactly how that preselection works is not clear.

The second is voter diversity, which rewards universities if they have more countries and more subjects in their respondent base, which, THE claims, indicates a strong reputation. 

Whatever THE's intentions, the overall result of these changes is clear. The USA, UK, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland have all increased the number of universities in the top 200. 

The biggest gainers are the UK, which has increased its representation in the top 200 from 20 to 24; Switzerland, which has gone from 4 to 7; and the Netherlands, which has also added another three universities.

Of the twenty British universities in the top 200, eleven have risen, seven are in the same rank or band, and only two, Birmingham and Sheffield, have fallen. It is hard to believe that there has been such a widespread improvement in the international reputation of British universities. 

In contrast, the new methodology has been disastrous for universities in China, Russia, the Arab region, India, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. 

The number of Chinese universities in the top 200 has fallen from 15 to 8. While Tsinghua and Peking Universities have retained their places, others have fallen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 43rd  place to 58th, the University of Science and Technology China from 61-70 to 101-150, and Harbin Institute of Technology from 101-125 to  201-300.

Russia has fared even worse. There were six greyed-out Russian universities in the 2023 rankings. Now, there are just two, Lomonosov Moscow State University, in 83rd place, down from 34th, and Bauman Moscow State Technical University, down from 60-70 to 201-300. The latter gets 1.7 points in the pairwise comparison. All of the others are gone.

In 2023, there were four Indian universities in the rankings, the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of Technology Bombay, Delhi, and Madras. Now, IIT Bombay has been removed altogether, and the Indian Institute of Science and the IITs Delhi and Madras have been demoted to the 201-300 band. They are joined by Siksha 'O' Anuhandsan, which has a global research rank of 1900 in the US News Best Global Universities. 

The worst-hit area is the Arab Region. Universities in Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have left. The only Arab university now is King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which does not teach undergraduates.

A glimpse of the impact of the new metrics can be seen by looking at the universities that come at the bottom for each metric. 

For voter counts, the ten worst universities are all European, followed by a handful of Australian and Canadian universities and Siksha 'O' Anuhandsan, suggesting that it is the new indicators that keep them in the ranking.

For pairwise comparison, the bottom is quite diverse; there is Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Liverpool University, the University of Buenos Aires, Beijing Normal Univerity, Universite Paris Cite, and the University of Cape Town.

The universities that do worst for voter diversity are mainly South Korean, Indian, Turkish, and Japanese. 

It seems then that one function of the new methodology is to slow down the advance of Asian universities and maintain the status of the Western elite. 

THE is shocked, shocked ...

We are repeatedly told that the TimesHigher Education (THE) university rankings are trusted by students, governments, and other stakeholders. Perhaps they are. Whether they should be is another matter. 

Last October, THE announced the results of its World University Rankings, and there was a chorus of lamentation from leading Australian universities, among others, who apparently trusted THE. It seems that the debate over restricting the admission of international students has damaged the country's reputation, and that has been reflected in the THE reputation survey. which contributes disproportionately to THE's teaching and research "pillars." That has led to declining overall scores, which will be the start of a vicious downward spiral. British and American universities also bemoaned the decline in ranking scores, supposedly due to the lack of funding from hard-hearted governments.

For many academics and administrators, THE has become the arbiter of excellence and a credible advisor to the agencies that dominate Western economy and society. It has even become a preferred analyst for the WEF, which is supposed to represent the finest minds of the corporate global world. This is quite remarkable since there is a big mismatch between THE's pretensions to excellence and its actual practice. 

A recent example was the publication of a story about how THE's data analysts had detected collusive activity among some universities in order to boost their scores in the reputation surveys that make up a substantial part of the THE World University Rankings and their various derivatives.

On October 24, David Watkins of THE announced that a "syndicate" had been detected where universities supported each other in the THE Arab reputation survey to the exclusion of non-members. Exactly who those members were was not announced, but it probably included the nine universities that made it to the top 200 in THE World Reputation Survey announced in February 2024, the data for which was included in THE world ranking announced in October  2024. It might also include some universities that had made sudden and surprising gains in the Arab University Rankings announced in November 2023, and the World University Rankings announced last October.

There is a whiff of hypocrisy here. THE is apparently getting upset because universities have probably been doing something that the rankers have condoned or at least ignored. There were signs that something was a bit off as far back as the Arab University Rankings in November 2023. These showed surprisingly good performances from several universities that had performed poorly or not at all in other rankings. In particular, universities in the Emirates were rising while those in Egypt were falling. This was interesting because the results were announced at a summit held in Abu Dhabi that featured several speakers from the Emirates, a development reminiscent of the 2014 summit in Qatar when Texas A and M Qatar was proclaimed the top MENA university based on precisely half a highly cited researcher followed by a similar summit in the UAE in 2015 when that university -- actually a program that has now been wound up -- disappeared, and  United Arab Emirates University advanced to fifth place.

Meanwhile,  between October 2023  and January 2024, THE was conducting their survey of academic opinion for the World University Rankings. Before 2021, they had relied on survey data supplied by Clarivate, but now the survey has been brought in-house. That, it now appears, was not a good idea. The number of survey respondents soared, and there was a disproportionate number of respondents from the UAE. In February 2024, THE published the results of its reputation survey, which would later become a part of the world rankings. 

THE listed only the top 200 universities and gave exact scores for the top fifty.  The interesting thing was that nine Arab universities were included whose reputation scores were below the scores for academic reputation in the QS World University Rankings rankings, the scores for global research reputation in the US News Best Global Universities ranking, or scores in the Round University Rankings, if they were actually ranked at all and below their previous scores.  They were also above the scores achieved by leading universities in the region in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Lebanon, and they appeared unrelated to other indicators. 

It was probably not only Arab universities. Egor Yablokov of E --  Quadrat Science and Education identified several universities whose reputation score appears disproportionate to the overall scores for the THE world rankings.

When the 2025 WUR rankings appeared in October of last year, there were more signs that something was amiss. Universities in the UAE  including Abu Dhabi University and Khalifa University, also in Abu Dhabi, did much better than in previous editions or in other rankings. There were other apparent anomalies. Al Ahliyaa Amaan University was ahead of the University of Jordan, the Lebanese American University higher than the American University of Beirut,  the American University of the Middle East higher than Kuwait University, Future University in Egypt, and the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology higher than Cairo University and Al Azhar. 

Then came the Arab University Rankings. It appears that THE had now taken action against the "syndicate", resulting in them dropping significantly. 

In addition to this, there are some trends that require explanation. Many universities in Saudi Arabia and UAE have fallen significantly, while some in Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq have risen.  Applied Science Private University, Jordan, has risen from 91-100 to 25, Al Ahliyya Amman University, also in Jordan, from 91-100 to  28, Ahlia University in  Bahrain from unranked to 17th, Cairo University from  28 to 8, the University of Baghdad from 40 to 20, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad from 71-80 to 37, An Najah National University, Palestine, 81-90 to 23, and Dhofar University, Oman, from 101-120 to 49. 

So, THE have allocated a whopping 41% weighting for reputation, of which 23% is for research reputation, for their Arab University Rankings, compared to 25% for their Asian rankings and 33% for the Latin American rankings. They have  introduced a new metric, collaboration within the Arab world, taken over the research and teaching survey from Elsevier, increased the number of respondents, organized prestigious summits, and offered a variety of consultancy arrangements. All of this would create an environment in which exclusive agreements were likely to flourish.

The extreme fluctuations resulting from THE's changes to the reputation indicators have seriously undermined THE's credibility, or at least they ought to. It would be better for everybody if THE simply returned the administration of the reputation survey to Elsevier and stuck to event management, where it is unsurpassed. 

 

Are Australian universities really on a precipice?

  

Times Higher Education (THE) recently published the latest edition of their World University Rankings (WUR), which contained bad news for Australian higher education. The country’s leading universities have fallen down the rankings, apparently because of a decline in their scores for research and teaching reputation scores and international outlook, that is international students, staff, and collaboration.

THE has reported that Angel Calderon of RMIT had said that the “downturn had mainly been driven by declining scores in THE’s reputation surveys” and that he was warning that there was worse to come.

Australian universities have responded by demanding that the cap on international students be lifted to avoid financial disaster. Nobody seems to consider how the universities got to the point where they could not survive without recruiting researchers and students from abroad.

It is, however, a mistake to predict catastrophe from a single year’s ranking. Universities have thousands of faculty, employees, and students and produce thousands of patents, articles, books, and other outputs. If a ranking produces large-scale fluctuations over the course of a year, that might well be due to deficiencies in the methodology rather than any sudden change in institutional quality.

There are now several global university rankings that attempt to assess universities' performance in one way or another. THE is not the only one, nor is it the best, and in some ways, it is the worst or nearly the worst.  For universities to link their public image to a single ranking, or even a single indicator, especially one that is as flawed as THE, is quite risky.

To start with, THE is very opaque. Unlike QS, US News, National Taiwan University, Shanghai Ranking, Webometrics, and other rankings, THE does not provide ranks or scores for each of the metrics that it uses to construct the composite or overall score. Instead, they are bundled together in five “pillars”. It is consequently difficult to determine exactly what causes a university to rise or fall in any of these pillars. For example, an improvement in the teaching pillar might be due to increased institutional income, fewer students, fewer faculty, an improved reputation for teaching, more doctorates, fewer bachelor degrees awarded, or some combination of these or some of these.

Added to this are some very dubious results from the THE world and regional rankings over the years. Alexandria University, Aswan University, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Anglia Ruskin University, Panjab University, Federico Santa Maria Technical University, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, and the University of Perediniya have been at one time or another among the supposed world leaders for research quality measured by citations. Leaders for industry income, which is claimed to reflect knowledge transfer, have included Anadolu University, Asia University, Taiwan, the Federal University of Itajubá, and Makerere University,

The citations indicator has been reformed and is now the research quality indicator, but there are still some oddities at its upper level, such as Humanitas University, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Australian Catholic University, and St George’s, University of London, probably because they participated in a few highly cited multi-author medical or physics projects.

It now seems that the reputation indicators in the THE WUR are producing results that are similarly lacking in validity. Altogether, reputation counts for 33%, divided between the research and teaching pillars. A truncated version of the survey with the top 200 universities, the scores of fifty of which were provided, was published earlier this year, and the full results were incorporated in the recent world rankings.

Until 2021 THE used the results of a survey conducted by Elsevier among researchers who had published in journals in the Scopus database. After that THE brought the survey in-house and ran it themselves. That may have been a mistake. THE is brilliant at convincing journalists and administrators that it is a trustworthy judge of university quality, but it is not so good at actually assessing such quality, as the above examples demonstrate.

After bringing the survey in-house, THE increased the number of respondents from 10,963 in 2021 to 29,606 in 2022. 38,796 in 2023 and 55,689 in 2024. It seems that this is a different kind of survey since the new influx of respondents is likely to contain fewer researchers from countries like Australia. One might also ask how such a significant increase was achieved.

Another issue is the distribution of survey responses by subject. In 2021 a THE post on the reputation ranking methodology indicated the distribution of responses among academic by which the responses were rebalanced. So, while there were 9.8% computer science responses this was reduced to reflect a 4.2% proportion of international researchers. It seems that this information has not been provided for the 2022 or 2023 reputation surveys.

In 2017 I noted that Oxford’s reputation score tracked the percentage of THE survey responses from the arts and humanities, rising when there are more respondents from those fields and falling when there are fewer. So, the withholding of information about the distribution of responses by subjects is also significant since this could affect the ranking of Australian universities.

Then we have the issue of the geographical distribution of responses. THE has a long-standing policy of recalibrating its results to align with the number of researchers in a country, based on the number of researchers in countries according to data submitted and published by UNESCO.

There are good reasons to be suspicious of data emanating from UNESCO, some of which have been presented by Sasha Alyson.                               

But even if the data were totally accurate, there is still a problem that a university’s rise or fall in reputation might simply be due to a change in the relative number of researchers reported by government departments to the data crunching machines at THE.

According to UNESCO, the number of researchers per million inhabitants in Australia and New Zealand fell somewhat between 2016 and 2021. On the other hand, the number rose for Western Asia, Southern Asia, Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Northern Africa.

If these changes are accurate, it means that some of Australia's declining research reputation is due to the increase in researchers in other parts of the world and not necessarily to any decline in the quality or quantity of its research.

Concerns about THE's reputation indicators are further raised by looking at some of the universities that did well in the recent reputation survey.

Earlier this year, THE announced that nine Arab universities had achieved the distinction of reaching the top 200 of the reputation rankings, although none were able to reach the top 50, where the exact score and rank were given. THE admitted that the reputation of these universities was regional rather than local. In fact, as some observers noted at the time, it was probably less than regional and primarily national.

It was not Arab universities' rising in the reputation rankings that was disconcerting. Quite a few leading universities from that region have begun to produce significant numbers of papers, citations, and patents and attract the attention of international researchers, but they were not among those doing so well in THE’s reputation rankings.

Then, last May, THE announced that it had detected signs of “possible relationships being agreed between universities”  and that steps would be taken, although not, it would seem, in time for the recent WUR.

More recently, a LinkedIn post by Egor Yablonsky, CEO of E-Quadratic Science & Education, reported that a few European universities had significantly higher reputation scores than the overall world rankings.

Another reason Australia should be cautious of the THE rankings and their reputation metrics is that Australian universities' ranks in the THE reputation rankings are much lower than they are for Global Research Reputation in the US News (USN) Best Global Universities or Academic Reputation in the QS World rankings.

In contrast, some French, Chinese and Emirati universities do noticeably better in the THE reputation ranking than they do in QS or USN.

 

Table: Ranks of leading Australian universities

University	THE reputation 2023	USN global research reputation 2024-2025	QS academic reputation 2025
Melbourne	51-60	43	21
Sydney	61-70	53	30
ANU	81-90	77	36
Monash	81-90	75	78
Queensland	91-100	81	50
UNSW Sydney	126-150	88	43

 

It would be unwise to put too much trust in the THE reputation survey or in the world rankings where it has nearly a one-third weighting. There are some implausible results this year, and it stretches credibility that the American University of the Middle East has a better reputation among researchers than the University of Bologna, National Taiwan University, the Technical University of Berlin, or even UNSW Sydney. THE has admitted that some of these results may be anomalous, and it is likely that some universities will fall after THE takes appropriate measures.

Moreover, the reputation scores and ranks for the leading Australian universities are significantly lower than those published by US News and QS. It seems very odd that Australian universities are embracing a narrative that comes from such a dubious source and is at odds with other rankings. It is undeniable that universities in Australia are facing problems. But it is no help to anyone to let dubious data guide public policy.

So, please, will all the Aussie academics and journalists having nervous breakdowns relax a bit and read some of the other rankings or just wait until next year when THE will probably revamp its reputation metrics.