The number of responses has gone down a bit, from 10,566 last year to 10,162, possibly reflecting growing survey fatigue among academics.
In surveys of this kind the distribution of responses is crucial. The more responses from engineers the better for universities in Asia. The more from scholars in the humanities the better for Western Europe. I have noted in a previous blog that the fortunes of Oxford in this ranking are tied to the percentage of responses from the arts and humanities.
This year there have been modest or small reductions in the percentage of responses from the clinical and health sciences, the life sciences, the social sciences, education and psychology and large ones for business and economics and the arts and humanities.
The number of responses in engineering and computer science has increased considerably.
It is likely that this year places like Caltech and Nanyang Technological University will do better while Oxford and LSE will suffer. It will be interesting to see if THE claim that this is all the fault of Brexit, an anti-feminist reaction to Oxford's appointment of a female vice-chancellor or government Scrooges turning off the funding tap.
|
|
2017 %
|
2018 %
|
|
Physical science
|
14.6
|
15.6
|
|
Clinical and health
|
14.5
|
13.2
|
|
Life sciences
|
13.3
|
12.8
|
|
Business and economics
|
13.1
|
9
|
|
engineering
|
12.7
|
18.1
|
|
Arts and humanities
|
12.5
|
7.5
|
|
Social sciences
|
8.9
|
7.6
|
|
Computer science
|
4.2
|
10.4
|
|
Education
|
2.6
|
2.5
|
|
Psychology
|
2.6
|
2.3
|
|
Law
|
0.9
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
North America
|
22
|
22
|
|
Asia Pacific
|
33
|
32
|
|
Western Europe
|
25
|
26
|
|
Eastern Europe
|
11
|
11
|
|
Latin America
|
5
|
5
|
|
Middle East
|
3
|
3
|
|
Africa
|
2
|
2
|
