Are anglophone unis unfairly ranked highly in their own rankings?

This is a performance based competition among universities 'around' the world in mathematics, which should be the least culture/language/political system/finances biased of all exams in the world.

Anglophone countries are found wanting IMHO, they are nowhere near what THES or other rankings make out to be.

Are the university rankings published by THES (Times Higher Education Supplement) bogus? Are they too pro-anglo (UK/USA/Canada etc) to be reliable?

Discuss

http://www.imc-math.org.uk/imc2006/IMC06team.htm

No UNIVERSITY Best 3 + Team Average
1 Jagiellonian University 633
2 The Lomonosov Moscow State University 629
3 Sharif University of Technology 613
4 Eötvös Loránd University Budapest 599
5 Charles University Prague 563
6 Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University 562
7 Warsaw University 556
8 Belarusian State University 539
9 University of Tartu 525
10 Comenius University in Bratislava 512
11 Princeton University 511
12 University of Bonn 505
13 Ecole Polytechnique Paris 501
14 Kiev Polytechnic Institute 479
15 University of Bucharest 471
16 International University Bremen 456
17 Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University 434
18 Universidad de los Andes 428
19 Belgrade University 427
20 Technical University Budapest 412
21 University of Szeged 402
22 University of Turku 399
23 University of Ljubljana 393
24 University of Zagreb 386
25 Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj 383
26 Helsinki University of Technology 371
27 Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña 351
28 University College Cork 342
29 Utrecht University 338
30 Yerevan State University 337
31 Georg-August-University 335
32 Trinity College Dublin 327
33 Grodno State University 308
34 Isfahan University of Technology 305
35 Universidad Complutense de Madrid 300
36 Techinical University Cluj-Napoca 298
37 University of Amsterdam 291
38 University of Warwick 286
39 University of Tehran 240
40 University College London 232
41 Universidad Pontificia Comillas 200
42 University of Cyprus 164
43 Mongolian University of Science and Technology 101

http://www.imc-math.org.uk/imc2007/results2007teams.htm

IMC2007 Team Rankings

University stud best 3+avg
1 Eötvös Loránd University 7 769
2 Moscow State University 5 763
3 Sharif University of Technology 8 737
4 Princeton University 6 610
5 Warsaw University 4 596
6 Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University 8 560
7 Comenius University in Bratislava 4 550
8 Jagiellonian University 4 518
9 Belarusian State University 7 471
10 University of Bonn 5 465
11 University of Tartu 3 444
12 École Polytechnique Paris 5 441
13 Charles University Prague 6 427
14 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2
15 Technical University of Budapest 2 402
16 University of Sofia "St. Kliment Ohridski" 3
17 University of Zagreb 7 398
18 Helsinki University of Technology 4 398
19 University of Cyprus 6 396
20 Universidad de los Andes 2 394
21 University of Oxford 3 393
22 Utrecht University 5 391
23 University Politehnica Bucharest 3 381
24 PUC-Rio 2 380
25 Belgrade University 3 375
26 Budapest Semesters in Mathematics 3
27 University of Bucharest 3 345
28 University of Szeged 4 341
29 Isfahan University of Technology 6 337
30 University of Amsterdam 2 336
31 Universidad Complutense de Madrid 3 335
32 Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya 3 335
33 Ferdowsi University of Mashad 5 328
34 Jacobs University Bremen 6 314
35 Kiev Polytechnic Institute 2 302
36 Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica 3 299
37 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 3 299
38 Bandung Institute of Technology 2 294
39 Instituto Techologico de Aeronautica 2 294
40 Instituto Militar de Engenharia 4 293
41 Yerevan State University 4 290
42 Georg-August-Universitaet 4 273
43 Ruhr-Universität Bochum 2 270
44 University of Ljubljana 4 262
45 University College Cork 4 233
46 University of Warwick 5 221
47 Univesrity of Tehran 4 214
48 Oxford University 3 207
49 Universitat de Valencia (UVEG) 2 206
50 University of Turku 2 200
51 Adam Mickiewicz University 2 184
52 Pontificia Comillas 4 174
53 Odessa National I. I. Mechnikov University 2 172
54 Universität Wien 2 168
55 Mongolian University of Science and Technology 4 166
56 Universitas Indonesia 2 154
57 Norwegian University of Science and Technology 3 141
58 Sts "Cyril and Methodius" 2 116
59 University College London 2 104
60 Universität Stuttgart 3 81

Reply 1

maths-enthusiast

You can find the results for 2008, and before 2006 from that link too.

I have assumed you are familiar with THES or other anglophone uni rankings of the world wher anglophone unis are seen to dominate the rankings, specially the very top.

If one were to think such rankings are suggestive of 'quality' of education, students, curricula, training regimes or similar facets, it would be reflected in possibly some of the most unbiased tests around the world.

That these mathematics contests show results starkly in contrast to the claims by THES or SJT rankings makes you wonder.

Where's Tokyo?

2007 list has '21 University of Oxford 3 393' and '48 Oxford University 3 207' which seems a bit odd to me.

Reply 4

DescartesWasMyDad

You can't rank universities based on a small team of people. A lot of university rankings take into account large amounts of data. We have an arguably weaker 13-18 y/o mathematical education system than a lot of other countries and competitions like this will make that obvious.

Reply 5

maths-enthusiast

University students take part in these competitions.

Large amounts of data that are irrelevant to actual results are useless. In actual results, this is how they fare.

Slumpy, more than one team from Oxford participated then. Even then the best was a measly 21.

Reply 6

KLL

if anybody here had actually gone and lookes up how the big rankings are made, they'd know they're crap unless you simply wanna find out an instiutions reputation in the english language speaking world.

the THES ranking for example mainly asks companies and universities in english language countries for their oppinions on universities. in fact you can see, the more companies/professors from a certain country are asked, the better the country does in rankings.

Employer Review Responses by Country Source:
Country Respondents
United States 346
United Kingdom 269
Australia 178
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.
.
Germany 56
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.
.
Canada 37
Japan 37
France 36

Academic Peer Review Responses by Country Source:
Country Respondents
United States 638
United Kingdom 563
Australia 286
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.
.
Germany 182
.
.
.
Singapore 135
France 125
Belgium 124

what 3 coutnries dominate the top50? thats right, the US, UK and Australia

also when the rankings measure the academic performance of a university is measured by citations in international publications... and what does that mean? publications in english language. but what language do msot european researchers publish in? their own....

and in what criteria do msot non-english language universities do badly in? exactly those i mentioned

but there are also intersting rankings that are based on different methods:
http://www.ensmp.fr/Actualites/PR/EMP-ranking.html is for example intersting, as it shows where the worlds busienss leaders come from.. cambridge is 35th togethe with glasgow, TU munich, NTU and places i'ven ever heared of.
suddenly 4 japanese universities end up in top10 but only 1 brish (oxford)

Reply 7

maths-enthusiast

Sorry for not noticing this earlier. I need to subscribe to my own threads!

Thanks KLL for bringing up valid points.

I had seen that french ranking before you posted, but that is 'flawed' IMHO because it only caters to one field (business) and where the top ranking firms' CEOs graduated from.

Obviously stronger economies will have better rankings, moreover it's very fickle as Sony may change its CEO from a Japanese one to a British one, let's say, and all of a sudden a British uni will get a boost.

I think unbiased international competitions are the way to go.

So far I can think of International Maths competition for university students, and ACM-ICPC -International Collegiate Programming Contest.

For ICPC, well you need better finances but it's still quite unbiased except in language.

For IMC, it's probably the least biased of all international contests out there for uni students.

And the anglo unis are found wanting.

Reply 8

maths-enthusiast

Leiden Uni publishes their own rankings using various criteria mainly depending on publications and their 'impact' (measured by citations) and sometimes 'normalizing' it taking into account size or subject/field.

This is only a European Unis ranking

http://www.cwts.nl/ranking/top100_green_lst.html

Rank by CPP/FCSm top 100 universities 2000-2007

Rank Country University P CPP CPP/

FCSm

1 UK UNIV OXFORD 35,979 11.94 1.69
2 UK UNIV CAMBRIDGE 37,972 11.56 1.67
3 CH ECOLE POLYTECN FEDERALE LAUSANNE 10,650 6.38 1.59
4 CH ETH ZURICH 20,798 8.87 1.54
5 DK TECH UNIV DENMARK 10,474 7.54 1.52
6 CH UNIV LAUSANNE 10,676 12.38 1.50
7 UK IMPERIAL COLL LONDON 29,829 10.06 1.48
8 NL ERASMUS UNIV ROTTERDAM 16,090 10.81 1.47
9 UK UNIV EDINBURGH 18,734 10.18 1.47
10 UK UNIV COLL LONDON 36,889 11.22 1.46
11 NL DELFT UNIV TECHNOL 10,411 5.71 1.41
12 FI UNIV HELSINKI 22,976 9.80 1.41
13 CH UNIV BASEL 11,733 10.84 1.41
14 CH UNIV GENEVE 13,534 10.84 1.40
15 NL VRIJE UNIV AMSTERDAM 16,591 9.27 1.38
16 CH UNIV ZURICH 19,056 10.14 1.37
17 DE TECH UNIV MUNCHEN 17,015 8.47 1.36
18 NL UNIV AMSTERDAM 21,471 9.22 1.36
19 NL UNIV UTRECHT 25,299 9.17 1.35
20 UK UNIV BRISTOL 17,692 8.47 1.34
21 UK UNIV GLASGOW 15,918 9.03 1.33
22 UK UNIV SHEFFIELD 15,844 7.72 1.31
23 UK KINGS COLL UNIV LONDON 19,551 9.49 1.31
24 BE UNIV CATHOLIQUE LOUVAIN 10,001 7.90 1.30
25 UK UNIV SOUTHAMPTON 15,482 7.29 1.28
26 BE KATHOLIEKE UNIV LEUVEN 25,892 7.87 1.28
27 NL LEIDEN UNIV 17,838 9.50 1.28
28 SE KAROLINSKA INST STOCKHOLM 24,902 11.25 1.28
29 NL WAGENINGEN UNIV 12,497 7.57 1.27
30 NL UNIV GRONINGEN 16,366 8.45 1.27
31 NL UNIV MAASTRICHT 10,576 8.57 1.27
32 DE JOH WOLFG GOETHE UNIV FRANKFORT 12,586 8.82 1.26
33 DK AARHUS UNIV 16,837 8.25 1.26
34 UK UNIV NOTTINGHAM 15,558 7.33 1.26
35 DK KOBENHAVNS UNIV 25,519 8.47 1.24
36 SE LUNDS UNIV 23,386 8.60 1.23
37 UK UNIV BIRMINGHAM 17,277 7.88 1.23
38 DE UNIV HEIDELBERG 20,923 8.95 1.23
39 NO UNIV OSLO 15,860 7.92 1.22
40 NL RADBOUD UNIV NIJMEGEN 15,743 8.33 1.21
41 SE GOTEBORG UNIV 15,565 8.90 1.21
42 DE UNIV FREIBURG 13,992 8.86 1.21
43 UK UNIV LEEDS 17,045 7.34 1.21
44 SE UPPSALA UNIV 19,833 8.47 1.21
45 DE LMU UNIV MUNCHEN 24,809 8.87 1.21
46 DE JG UNIV MAINZ 10,881 9.81 1.20
47 CH UNIV BERN 12,765 8.14 1.20
48 UK UNIV MANCHESTER 25,358 7.11 1.20
49 BE UNIV GENT 18,308 6.39 1.20
50 DE UNIV HAMBURG 14,919 8.39 1.19
51 UK UNIV NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 11,474 7.94 1.19
52 DE FRIEDRICH ALEXANDER UNIV ERLANGEN 14,362 7.65 1.19
53 DE HEINRICH HEINE UNIV DUSSELDORF 10,007 9.53 1.18
54 FR UNIV PARIS V RENE DESCARTES 11,368 9.50 1.18
55 BE UNIV LIBRE BRUXELLES 10,143 7.77 1.17
56 FR UNIV PARIS XI SUD 19,667 7.26 1.17
57 FR UNIV PARIS VII DENIS DIDEROT 11,653 7.97 1.17
58 FR UNIV PARIS VI P&M CURIE 26,301 7.31 1.16
59 DE HUMBOLDT UNIV BERLIN 19,552 8.43 1.15
60 UK UNIV LIVERPOOL 14,445 6.89 1.15
61 DE UNIV AACHEN (RWTH) 13,048 6.46 1.14
62 UK UNIV WALES CARDIFF 14,280 7.37 1.14
63 DE BJM UNIV WURZBURG 12,632 8.69 1.13
64 FR UNIV GRENOBLE I JOSEPH FOURIER 11,170 7.02 1.13
65 DE UNIV ULM 9,535 8.28 1.13
66 IT UNIV MILANO 24,801 8.07 1.13
67 DE CHRISTIAN ALBRECHTS UNIV KIEL 11,048 7.40 1.12
68 ES UNIV AUTONOMA BARCELONA 12,678 6.43 1.10
69 DE EK UNIV TUBINGEN 16,036 8.03 1.10
70 ES UNIV BARCELONA 18,773 7.25 1.10
71 DE RFW UNIV BONN 14,913 7.42 1.09
72 ES UNIV VALENCIA 11,665 6.43 1.09
73 IT UNIV TORINO 12,083 7.38 1.09
74 ES UNIV AUTONOMA MADRID 12,662 7.49 1.07
75 AT UNIV WIEN 19,732 8.65 1.07
76 DE FREIE UNIV BERLIN 12,333 7.93 1.07
77 FR UNIV LYON I CLAUDE BERNARD 13,018 6.57 1.05
78 DE UNIV MUNSTER 13,982 7.46 1.04
79 DE UNIV DUISBURG ESSEN 10,109 6.76 1.04
80 DE UNIV MARBURG 9,681 7.90 1.04
81 FR UNIV TOULOUSE III 15,258 6.39 1.03
82 DE GA UNIV GOTTINGEN 13,405 7.19 1.03
83 IT UNIV GENOVA 9,968 6.71 1.03
84 IT UNIV BOLOGNA 18,761 6.10 1.03
85 DE UNIV KOLN 11,800 7.28 1.03
86 DE TECH UNIV DRESDEN 10,028 5.43 1.02
87 IT UNIV PADOVA 17,486 6.51 1.02
88 IT UNIV FIRENZE 11,994 6.23 0.99
89 IT UNIV PISA 12,912 5.46 0.97
90 IT UNIV NAPOLI FEDERICO II 15,236 6.13 0.97
91 DE RUHR UNIV BOCHUM 11,502 5.91 0.96
92 IT UNIV ROMA SAPIENZA 24,159 6.02 0.94
93 FR UNIV AIX MARSEILLE II MEDITERRANEE 10,141 7.26 0.93
94 ES UNIV COMPLUTENSE MADRID 15,626 5.49 0.90
95 DE FRIEDRICH SCHILLER UNIV JENA 9,636 5.72 0.89
96 DE UNIV LEIPZIG 11,033 5.65 0.88
97 EL ARISTOTLE UNIV THESSALONIKI 9,754 3.40 0.77
98 EL NATL & KAPODISTRIAN UNIV ATHENS 13,539 4.50 0.75
99 CZ CHARLES UNIV PRAGUE 12,228 3.88 0.69
100 RU MOSCOW MV LOMONOSOV STATE UNIV 23,554 2.30 0.40

Still the fact that English is the most widely used foreign language helps anglo universities in publications and citations.

Reply 9

maths-enthusiast

Some comments on the above ranking from Leiden.

* Russian Unis are noticable by their absence
* Switzerland is a star performer, specially given its size.
* UK is the best performer, although its language helps it a lot
* Some of the bigger Western european countries are underperforming like Germany, France, Italy and Spain