After five years of publication, the THE – QS World University Rankings have come of age. Students and their parents, companies, governments and even universities themselves all use them in different ways.

What started out as a bold and controversial experiment has matured into an established part of the international higher education landscape. More academics and employers than ever have contributed to the World University Rankings 2009, which have begun to settle down after the volatility that tends to characterise the early years of any such exercise.

 
Harvard is still top; as it has been in every year the rankings have appeared in the THE. But there are significant trends among the 2009 top universities, with many European and Asian universities improving their positions. Although US universities dominate the top 20, accounting for 13 of those positions, the presence of four UK universities in the top ten shows that academic excellence is not confined to one country. Cambridge and Yale have swapped places in pursuit of Harvard, while University College London (UCL) is now close behind.

Once again, there is only one non-English speaking university in the top 20 – this time ETH Zurich, rather than Tokyo, as it was last year. It is a result that underlines the extent to which English has become the global language of the academic community, as well as of the business world. Yet plenty of continental universities have made progress in the World University Ranking 2009: within the top 50, for example, the two Ecoles Polytechniques, in Paris and Lausanne, have both moved up. A number of European universities have joined the top 200, including St Petersburg State University, which jumped in at 168th place, and Gothenburg, which rose almost 70 places in a single year.

There are success stories in Asia too, where universities have been on a rising curve since the World University Rankings were first published. The continent has nine universities in the top 50, while the Japanese universities of Nagoya and Tohoku, and the National Taiwan University have all broken into the top 100.

Jan Figel, the European Union’s Education Commissioner, has said he expects Asian universities – particularly those in China and India – to eventually dominate the rankings unless Europe matches their investment. Although India is represented in the top 200, only by the Indian Institutes of Technology in Mumbai and Delhi, mainland China now has six universities in the overall ranking, as well as five from Hong Kong.

In contrast to other apparently similar league tables, the main THE-QS World University Ranking rewards all-round excellence. While research remains at the heart of the exercise through the peer review of academics and the use of citations, the other indicators build up a more rounded picture of a university’s strengths in a variety of subjects. Staffing levels are included as a proxy for the student experience; employers add their experience of graduates, while international student and faculty ratios give an indication of a global outlook.

This year, for the first time, the World University Rankings include a classification for each institution, based on their size, breadth and research intensity. The initiative, which is based loosely on the Carnegie Classification used in the US, is intended to allow readers to compare like with like. Critics of the rankings have claimed that they compare “apples with oranges” by failing to distinguish between specialist and generalist universities, or making allowance for size. In fact, the use of ratios, rather than volume, in several of the indicators already ensured that the biggest were not necessarily identified as the best. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with barely 2,000 students, has been in the top ten in every edition of the rankings. But the new system will enable readers to draw their own conclusions at a glance. The largest universities, with a full range of subjects and high research intensity, are marked as A1, with a sliding scale down to L4 for small, specialist institutions with little research activity.

As usual, the rankings acknowledge specialist strengths with separate tables for the arts and humanities; engineering and technology; life sciences and medicine; natural sciences; and social sciences. This is where some of the smaller institutions without a full range of subjects come into their own. The London School of Economics, for example, although restricted to 67th in the overall ranking, is in the top five for social science. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is another prime example: ninth in the overall ranking but pre-eminent in engineering and technology. Cambridge regains the lead it lost in 2007 in the natural and physical sciences. In the other three subject areas, Harvard continues to reign supreme.

The subject rankings also recognise the strengths of some famous universities that do not appear in the top 200 overall. Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, for example, Sapienza University of Rome and University Complutense Madrid all appear in the subject ranking for the arts and humanities. As with many higher education rankings, prospective students are well advised to balance a university’s standing in a particular subject with its position overall. Those considering a postgraduate place may be more interested in the subject rankings, whereas all-round strength and a reputation for excellence may tip the balance in the choice of an undergraduate course.

In certain areas, future employers may be well versed in the standing of specialist institutions – particularly in some technological fields, where there are close ties between universities and industry. However, often those who recruit graduates will be swayed mainly by the overall reputation of a university.

The aggregation of scores in the main QS World University Rankings represents an attempt to produce the most up-to-date and rounded picture of the growing number of global institutions. In particular, the views of more than 9,000 academics – weighted to ensure a balance of subjects and fair representation of Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world – offer a uniquely expert source of knowledge.

This year’s rankings will spark endless debate about the relative positions of different universities. But they cannot be ignored.