When will Tsinghua Overtake Harvard?

One of the most interesting trends in higher education over the last few years is the rise of China and the relative decline of the USA.

Winston Churchill said the empires of the future will be empires of the mind. If that is so then this century will very likely be the age of Chinese hegemony. Chinese science is advancing faster than that of the USA on all or nearly all fronts. Unless we count things like critical race theory or queer studies.

This is something that should show up in the global rankings if we track them over at least a few years. So, here is a comparison of the top two universities in the two countries according to indicators of research output and research quality over a decade.

Unfortunately, most international rankings are not very helpful in this respect. Few of the current ones provide data for a decade or more. QS and THE have seen frequent changes in methodology and THE's citation indicator although charmingly amusing is not useful unless you think that Aswan University, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Peradeniya are world beaters for research impact. Two helpful rankings here are Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), and Leiden Ranking.

Let's compare the comparative performance of Tsinghua University and Harvard in the Shanghai Ranking's indicator of research output, papers over a one year period, excluding arts and humanities. The published scores are derived from the square roots of the raw data with the top scorer getting a score of 100.

In 2009 Harvard's score  was 100 while that for Tsinghua was 55.8. In 2019 it was 100 for Harvard and 79.5 for Tsinghua. So the gap is closing 2.37 points every year. At that rate it would take about nine years for Tsinghua to catch up so look out for 2028.

Of course, this is quantity not quality so take a look at another indicator, Highly Cited Researchers. This is a moderately gamable metric and I suspect that Shanghai might have to abandon it one day but it captures the willingness and ability of universities to sponsor research of a high quality. In 2009 Tsinghua's score was zero compared to Harvard's 100. In 2019 it is 37.4. If everything continues at the same rate Tsinghua will overtake Harvard in another 17 years.

Looking at the default indicator in Leiden Ranking, total publications, in 2007-10 Tsinghua was 35% of Harvard and in 2014-17 56%. Working from that Tsinghua would achieve parity in 2029-33, in the rankings published in 2035.

Looking at a measure of research quality, publications in the top 10% of journals, Tsinghua was 15% of Harvard in 2007-10 and 34% in 2014-17.  From that, Tsinghua should reach parity  in 2038-42. in the rankings published in 2044, assuming Leiden is still following its current methodology.

So it looks like Tsinghua will reach parity in  research output in a decade or a decade or a decade and a half and high quality research in a decade and a half or two decades and a half.

Using Webometrics to Rank University Systems

Recently there has been some interest in ranking higher education systems in addition to institutions or departments. See here and here.  But both of these efforts, from Universitas 21 and QS, rank only 50 countries.

The Webometrics rankings attempt to cover every university in the world or anything that might conceivably claim to be a university, institute or college. The indicators comprise web activity and research output. So, there is data here to create a simple and comprehensive  ranking of countries. Below is the list of countries and territories ranked according to the world rank of the highest ranked university. If the Webometrics methodology remains unchanged it will be updated twice a year.

The table is not very surprising overall but it is worth noting that the leading Asian countries are already in the top ten and that Brazil and Mexico  are not too far behind. The performance of Arab countries is not too impressive even if they are rich in oil.

It's a safe bet that the highest ranked Chinese university will rise steadily over the next few years followed by South Korea and Singapore, but probably not Hong Kong and Australia.

Rank	Country	Rank of highest ranked university
1	USA	1
2	UK	7
3	Canada	19
4	Switzerland	32
5	China	33
6	Hong Kong	45
7	Australia	46
8	Singapore	50
9	Netherlands	63
10	Japan	69
11	Brazil	74
12	Denmark	76
13	Belgium	78
14	Finland	87
15	Norway	93
16	Germany	97
17	Sweden	106
18	Taiwan	111
19	South Korea	116
20	Italy	120
21	Spain	133
22	Mexico	141
23	Austria	150
24	New Zealand	153
25	Israel	157
26	Czech Republic	204
27	Portugal	208
28	Greece	224
29	Russia	226
30	Argentina	228
31	Ireland	230
32	South Africa	274
33	France	292
34	Chile	323
35	Malaysia	352
36	Argentina	372
37	Poland	388
38	Saudi Arabia	415
39	Iran	417
40	Estonia	440
41	Serbia	464
42	India	471
43	Turkey	475
44	Thailand	513
45	Iceland	533
46	Hungary	563
47	Egypt	602
48	Colombia	614
49	Croatia	619
50	Luxembourg	631
51	Puerto Rico	649
52	Belarus	684
53	Cyprus	700
54	Macau	720
55	Slovakia	732
56	Lithuania	750
57	Indonesia	771
58	Costa Rica	844
59	Malta	866
60	Romania	881
61	Bulgaria	934
62	Jamaica	953
63	Qatar	958
64	Peru	971
65	Kenya	987
66	Vietnam	1013
67	Slovenia	1103
68	Latvia	1106
69	Uganda	1129
70	Jordan	1149
71	UAE	1158
72	Philippines	1199
73	Ghana	1209
74	Nigeria	1233
75	Pakistan	1269
76	Ethiopia	1314
77	Oman	1346
78	Georgia	1423
79	Morocco	1515
80	North Macedonia	1569
81	Venezuela	1593
82	Ecuador	1638
83	Palestine	1646
84	Bosnia	1669
85	Kazakhstan	1793
86	Trinidad	1794
87	Iraq	1804
88	Brunei	1829
89	Fiji	1831
90	Bangladesh	1895
91	Tanzania	1913
92	Ukraine	1977
93	Sri Lanka	1981
94	Zimbabwe	2014
95	Algeria	2061
96	Cuba	2134
97	Bahrain	2161
98	Kuwait	2200
99	Mozambique	2280
100	Paraguay	2297
101	Mauritius	2422
102	Guatemala	2458
103	Uruguay	2499
104	Botswana	2583
105	Grenada	2583
106	Armenia	2643
107	Liechtenstein	2761
108	Montenegro	2878
109	Guam	2900
110	Sudan	2936
111	Bolivia	2960
112	Mongolia	2962
113	Benin	2980
114	Malawi	3001
115	Zambia	3001
116	Senegal	3008
117	Moldova	3151
118	Tunisia	3198
119	Rwanda	3220
120	Nepal	3243
121	Namibia	3316
122	Panama	3391
123	Cameroon	3527
124	Barbados	3538
125	Azerbaijan	3573
126	US Virgin Islands	3579
127	Syria	3593
128	Burkina Faso	3634
129	Dominica	3679
130	Honduras	3892
131	Uzbekistan	4017
132	Libya	4040
133	Yemen	4126
134	Faroe Islands	4368
135	Madagascar	4372
136	Togo	4392
137	Eswatini	4428
138	Laos	4431
139	Nicaragua	4458
140	El Salvador	4542
141	Kyrgyzstan	4554
142	French Polynesia	4640
143	Albania	4735
144	Monaco	4842
145	Dominican Republic	4903
146	Cambodia	5060
147	San Marino	5107
148	Papua New Guinee	5205
149	Greenland	5378
150	Afghanistan	5676
151	Lesotho	5872
152	Antigua	6040
153	Guyana	6149
154	Ivory Coast	6306
155	Anguilla	6374
156	Suriname	6641
157	Democratic Republic of the Congo	7033
158	American Samoa	7213
159	Myanmar	7221
160	Belize	7497
161	Micronesia	7962
162	Haiti	8082
163	Angola	8091
164	Bhutan	8159
165	Niger	8384
166	Sierra Leone	8560
167	Somalia	10154
168	St Kitts & Nevis	10527
169	Cape Verde	10685
170	Andorra	10772
171	Gambia	11020
172	Seychelles	11235
173	South Sudan	12329
174	Cayman Islands	13011
175	Samoa	13132
176	Bermuda	13431
177	British Virgin Islands	13694
178	Maldives	13864
179	Palau	13864
180	St Lucia	13981
181	Tajikistan	14180
182	Djibouti	14186
183	Central African Republic	14433
184	Northern Marianas	14444
185	Marshall Islands	15827
186	Gabon	16002
187	Aruba	16347
188	Solomon Islands	17867
189	Montserrat	18103
190	East Timor	18433
191	Guinea	18588
192	French Guiana	18703
193	Liberia	19463
194	Isle of Man	20029
195	Mali	20172
196	Mauretania	22144
197	Equatorial Guinea	23382
198	Niue	23892
199	Eritrea	24481
200	Turks & Caicos Islands	27918