New Arrivals in the THE Top 200.

Every time a new ranking is published there are cries for the dismissal or worse of vice-chancellors or presidents who allowed their universities to lose ground. There will no doubt be more demands as the results of this year's THE rankings are digested. This will be very unjust since there are reasons why universities might take a tumble that have nothing to do with any decline in quality.

First, Thomas Reuters, THE's data collectors, have introduced several methodological changes. In the top 20 or 30 these might not mean very much but lower down the effect could be very large.

Second, rankers sometimes make mistakes and so do those who collect  data for institutions.

Third, many new universities have taken part this year. I counted thirteen just in the top 200 and there are certainly many more in the 200s and300s. A university ranked 200 last year would lose 13 places even if it had exactly the same relative score.

The thirteen newcomers are Texas at Austin, Rochester, Hebrew  University of Jerusalem, University of Florida, Brandeis, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Nijmegan, Medical University of South Carolina, Louvain, Universite Paris Diderot vii, Queen's University, Canada, Sao Paulo, Western Australia.

Highlights of the THE rankings

Some interesting results.

57.  Ohio State University
103.  Cape Town
107 Royal Holloway
149. Birkbeck
184. Iowa State
197. Georgia Health Sciences University
201-225. Bilkent
201-225 University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
226-250 Creighton University USA
226-250 Tokyo Metropolitan
251-275 Wayne State
276-300 University of Crete
276-300 University of Iceland
276-300 Istanbul Technical University
276-300 Queensland University of Technology
276-300 Tokyo Medical and Dental University
301-350 Alexandria
301-350 Aveiro University
301-350 Hertfordshire
301-350 Plymouth University, UK
301-350 Sharif University of Technology
301-350 National University of Ireland, Maynooth
301-350 Taiwan Ocean University
301-350 Old Dominion University, USA

THE Rankings Out

The THE 2011-12 rankings are out.

Here is the top 10.

1. Caltech
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Oxford
5. Princeton
6. Cambridge
7. MIT
8. Imperial College London
9. Chicago
10. Berkeley

THE Rankings: Caltech Ousts Harvard

This is from the Peninsula in Qatar

LONDON: US and British institutions once again dominate an annual worldwide league table of universities published yesterday, but there is a fresh name at the top, unseating long-time leader Harvard.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) knocked the famous Massachusetts institution from the summit of the Times Higher Education (THE) league table for the first time in eight years, with US schools claiming 75 of the top 200 places.
Next is Britain, which boasts 32 establishments in the top 200, but an overhaul in the way in which the country’s universities are funded has raised concerns over its continuing success.
Asia’s increasing presence in the annual table has stalled, with 30th placed University of Tokyo leading the continent’s representation.
China’s top two universities hold on to their elite status, but no more institutions from the developing powerhouse managed to break into the top 200.
THE attributed Caltech’s success to “consistent results across the indicators and a steep rise in research funding”.