The Student Room Group

Isn't this better than rankings?

A while ago I came across this ranking published by Nature:
http://www.natureasia.com/en/publishing-index/global/
The ranking is based on the number of publications of a university or a non-university research institution (like Max Planck society in Germany, or IBM corporation) in Nature journals.
There's also the website: natureindex.com
You can just search any research institution's name and it gives the number of its published papers in high-impact journals and gives how many papers in each journal, even what the papers are and more.

Graduate school is about research, and any graduate applicant should be able to identify which research groups in which universities are better fits for him/her, rather than rely on rankings. But if one wants to compare different universities/institutes in Chemistry, Environmental/Life/Physical sciences, I think searching their name in natureindex and comparing the number of their published papers in high-impact journals is a much better approach than Times, QS, Shanghai, etc rankings.

EDIT: Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Read post #13 too
(edited 8 years ago)

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Reply 1
The REF (Research Excellence Framework) does measure UK university research Impact in exactly this way, also categorising unis by different levels of research quality and impact.

The exercise is carried out every few years and was previously called RAE (Research Assessment Exercise). The last complete table was published for 2008 but individual unis are already talking about their 2015 results, so you can get a very up-to-date of research quality and focus with minimal internet searching.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Klix88
The RAE assessment does measure research Impact in exactly this way, also categorising unis by different levels of impact.


It's only for uk unis though
Reply 3
Original post by IWantToBeThere
It's only for uk unis though


TSR is a UK-based site, so I guess that's largely the focus here.

Number of peer-reviewed publications is a bit of a blunt instrument, but it's a good starting point in the absence of any other metric.
Original post by Klix88
TSR is a UK-based site, so I guess that's largely the focus here.

Number of peer-reviewed publications is a bit of a blunt instrument, but it's a good starting point in the absence of any other metric.


It is much more than just the number.
UK students might want to compare UK unis with oversees ones, or might want to go abroad for PhD.
At the very least, it's just another measure I wanted to share.
Reply 5
Original post by IWantToBeThere
It is much more than just the number.
UK students might want to compare UK unis with oversees ones, or might want to go abroad for PhD.
At the very least, it's just another measure I wanted to share.


Exactly.

But how about the suitability of the candidate with the supervisor/supervision/research group? I believe this is also a critical factor for the candidates, which is of course subjective and almost impossible to measure.
Original post by kka25
Exactly.

But how about the suitability of the candidate with the supervisor/supervision/research group? I believe this is also a critical factor for the candidates, which is of course subjective and almost impossible to measure.


Of course, I mentioned it in my OP.
Original post by IWantToBeThere
A while ago I came across this ranking published by Nature:
http://www.natureasia.com/en/publishing-index/global/
The ranking is based on the number of publications of a university or a non-university research institution (like Max Planck society in Germany, or IBM corporation) in Nature journals.
There's also the website: natureindex.com
You can just search any research institution's name and it gives the number of its published papers in high-impact journals and gives how many papers in each journal, even what the papers are and more.

Graduate school is about research, and any graduate applicant should be able to identify which research groups in which universities are better fits for him/her, rather than rely on rankings. But if one wants to compare different universities/institutes in Chemistry, Environmental/Life/Physical sciences, I think searching their name in natureindex and comparing the number of their published papers in high-impact journals is a much better approach than Times, QS, Shanghai, etc rankings.


As said, TSR is for UK grads. Most of them do not have enough wealth to afford studying overseas out of their own pocket so it makes more sense to focus on the UK.
Original post by Juichiro
As said, TSR is for UK grads. Most of them do not have enough wealth to afford studying overseas out of their own pocket so it makes more sense to focus on the UK.


Firstly, being wealthy or not is rather irrelevant, as funded PhD's are the norm in North America, and some countries in Europe. In some countries, like Netherlands, salaries for PhD's are compulsory.

On the other hand, I guess it's a good measure/ another good measure to compare UK universities with themselves and with those abroad, much better than rankings imo, to find which universities are stronger in your field.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 9
Its a misleading ranking because Nature journals arent considered top tier publications in many fields, hence it is very biased towards the experimental sciences (and the life sciences in particular) which tend to put Nature above everything, and consider Nature field journals (eg Nature Genetics) to be top tier publications.

If you click on the number to the right of each university, you can see the actual papers that were counted. Around 60-70% of them are life sciences, and another 20% or so come from other experimental sciences (mostly physic). Other fields (humanities, social sciences, mathematics, computer science, theoretical science, etc) get almost no representation.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by poohat
Its a misleading ranking because Nature journals arent considered top tier publications in many fields, hence it is very biased towards the experimental sciences (and the life sciences in particular) which tend to put Nature above everything, and consider Nature field journals (eg Nature Genetics) to be top tier publications.

If you click on the number to the right of each university, you can see the actual papers that were counted. Around 60-70% of them are life sciences, and another 20% or so come from other experimental sciences (mostly physic). Other fields (humanities, social sciences, mathematics, computer science, theoretical science, etc) get almost no representation.


I wouldn't say it's misleading but you're definitely correct.
If you're a physics major, a chemistry major or in life sciences, I think it's very useful. If you're in math/CS or humanities and social sciences, better look elsewhere.

EDIT: Note that in natureindex.com many more journals other than Nature journals are considered.

Original post by poohat

If you click on the number to the right of each university, you can see the actual papers that were counted. Around 60-70% of them are life sciences, and another 20% or so come from other experimental sciences (mostly physic).


You probably checked UK universities. According to Nature output of the UK in life sciences is more than other fields, but it's still ~40% not 70%. In Germany or Switzerland, physical sciences are the majority.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 11
Original post by IWantToBeThere
I wouldn't say it's misleading but you're definitely correct.
If you're a physics major, a chemistry major or in life sciences, I think it's very useful. If you're in math/CS or humanities and social sciences, better look elsewhere.

If youre a physics, chemistry or life science major then you would be better focusing on a ranking that looks at your paricular subject rather than some weird Nature list that throws all three together

EDIT: Note that in natureindex.com many more journals other than Nature journals are considered.
It only looks at the Nature journals (Nature itself, along with Nature Genetics, Nature Bioinformatics, etc)
Original post by poohat
If youre a physics, chemistry or life science major then you would be better focusing on a ranking that looks at your paricular subject rather than some weird Nature list that throws all three together

It only looks at the Nature journals (Nature itself, along with Nature Genetics, Nature Bioinformatics, etc)


I mentioned in my OP that a PhD applicant should look at individual labs and determine which research groups in which universities are a good fit.

I'm mostly talking about natureindex.com and if you search a university there, and click on any discipline, you will see A LOT of other journals. In physical sciences, for example, there are "advanced materials/ applied physics letters/ journal of high energy physics/ science/ physical review letters/ the astrophysical journal/ ..." other than Nature ones "Nature physics/ photonics/ nanotechnology/..." AND if you click on any of these journals, you can see which papers has that university published in that journal, and if you click on each paper, you'll get a lot of information about the paper too.
So, what I'm saying is that you can search the name of X universities, then click on a specific area, then compare the number of publications of those X universities in that area, and also the publications themselves.

Honestly, I think it's wonderful. Definitely much better than Times/QS/Shanghai imo.
Reply 13
Original post by IWantToBeThere
I mentioned in my OP that a PhD applicant should look at individual labs and determine which research groups in which universities are a good fit.

I'm mostly talking about natureindex.com and if you search a university there, and click on any discipline, you will see A LOT of other journals. In physical sciences, for example, there are "advanced materials/ applied physics letters/ journal of high energy physics/ science/ physical review letters/ the astrophysical journal/ ..." other than Nature ones "Nature physics/ photonics/ nanotechnology/..." AND if you click on any of these journals, you can see which papers has that university published in that journal, and if you click on each paper, you'll get a lot of information about the paper too.

No, the ranking you posted only looks at publications in Nature journals. Look at the top of the page

These rankings are based on the number1 of papers that were published in 2013 from the institutions2 listed below. These rankings only include primary research papers that were published as "Articles, Letters and Brief Communications" in Nature and/or Nature monthly research journals.

To view the list of articles from an institution click on the number in the right hand column.
Reply 14
The other obvious problem is that they dont normalise based on institution size, so large universities have an inherent advantage over smaller ones. I just assumed that the CC column was a size-normalised measure but it isnt.
Original post by poohat
No, the ranking you posted only looks at publications in Nature journals. Look at the top of the page


search a uni here: http://www.natureindex.com/
Original post by poohat
No, the ranking you posted only looks at publications in Nature journals. Look at the top of the page


Was I right?
Reply 17
No, and I already posted above why.
Original post by poohat
No, and I already posted above why.


I don't understand. :confused: You can obviously see journals other than Nature ones here:
http://www.natureindex.com/institution-outputs/United%20Kingdom%20(UK)/University%20of%20Cambridge/Physical%20Sciences
Reply 19
Thats a completely different site and a completely different ranking to the one in your original post

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