Lesson from the subject rankings is that funding is key

On 3 March, QS released its 11th edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject, as reported by University World News. Within minutes of its release, universities’ media offices issued stories and posted congratulatory messages about their ‘successes’ on a variety of social media channels.

The 2021 edition covers 51 subject areas and includes 1,456 institutions from 86 countries.

Since the 2017 edition, 335 more institutions have been added to the rankings. This is the second year in which the ranking covers 51 subject areas, compared to 46 in 2017 or 26 when it was first launched in 2011.

One criticism about global rankings is that they are not stable. However, the QS rankings by subject have shown relative stability over the years and this is important for the credibility and longevity of any ranking schema.

Subject rankings broaden the ability for institutions to claim global standing for the discipline areas that they are renowned for domestically or internationally. Prospective students pay attention to them. Institutions use them to identify potential partners for academic exchanges and research collaboration. And policy-makers like them because rankings put a spotlight on the relative strength of national systems.

An important caveat is that the data for the 2021 subject rankings was collected via reputation surveys between February to March 2020 and bibliometric data collected from Elsevier and reflects outputs up to 2019. Therefore, any link to the coronavirus crisis is premature.

While individual universities’ performance may be due to a range of factors, what the rankings do show is general regional disparities.

Top listed countries and regions

Both the United States and the United Kingdom continue to outperform all other countries. The United States is listed the most – 3,058 times – and is ranked top in 30 subject areas, while the United Kingdom is listed 1,396 times and is top in 13 subjects.

China has the third most listings at 772 in 2021 compared to 560 in 2017. This is a significant leap and puts it ahead of Germany and Australia. Australia ranks fourth in terms of the most listings (732 times) compared to 662 in 2020 and 646 in 2017, when it was ranked third globally. The rest of the top 10 countries consist of Canada (593), Italy (477), Japan (430), France (407) and South Korea (407).

Over the years, the countries which have been listed the most times have remained stable.

Through the lens of global regions, the distribution of listings has not changed considerably over the past five years:

• Western Europe has 36.1% of listings in 2021 (5,211), 0.9 percentage points down compared to 2017.

• North America has 25.3% in 2021 (3,651) and is 1.7 percentage points down compared to 2017.

• East Asia & the Pacific (excluding Australia and New Zealand) is down from 17.4% in 2017 to 17.1% in 2021 (2,462).

• As a sub-region, Australia and New Zealand have experienced a decline from 7.1% in 2017 to 6.3% in 2021 (913), in part influenced by lower scores in the reputation surveys.

• Latin America has 4.8% in 2021 (696), which is unchanged compared to 2017.

• Central & East Europe is up from 3.3% in 2017 to 4.7% (397) in 2021.

• South & West Asia has 2.8% in 2021 (397), up from 1.6% in 2017.

• The Arab States have 1.9% in 2021 (269), up from 1.6% in 2017.

• Africa has 1% in 2021 (141), which is unchanged compared to 2017.

• Central Asia has 0.1% in 2021 (18), the smallest proportion globally.

Top performers

As noted above, the US and the UK have the most listings of their institutions ranked first (they get the first position 43 times in the 51 subject areas and in two instances institutions share first place). The other three top countries (China, Australia and Germany) do not have an institution that ranks first globally by subject area.

Switzerland ranks first four times, followed by the Netherlands and Singapore which each rank first twice, and Italy and Sweden which each rank first once.

Let us focus on the geographical distribution by band to illustrate the dominance of North America and Western Europe and the rise of East Asia & the Pacific.

Western Europe has 35% of its subject listings ranked in the top 100 and is slightly above East Asia & the Pacific (excluding Australia and New Zealand) at 34%, but is below North America at 43% and Australia and New Zealand at 46%. Other regions range from 19% for Latin America to 6% for Central Asia.

For those in the top 200, the distribution of listings is more balanced across regions. 29.4% of West Europe’s subject listings are in this band and this is closely followed by Australia and New Zealand (28.3%), Latin America (27.9%) and Central Asia (27.8%). Next comes South & West Asia, the Arab States, North America and the East Asia & the Pacific region (excluding Australia and New Zealand) which are not far behind (ranging between 24% and 26%).

Central & East Europe has the highest proportion of its subject listings in the top 300 at 24.5%, followed by the Arab States (22.7%), then Central Asia (22.2%) and Africa (22%). All other world regions have a proportion that is below 20%.

A broad mix of regions is more likely to be represented in the band in the top 301 plus, ranging from 41% of the subject listings for the Arab States to 49% for South & West Asia and in between are Africa, Central Asia and Central & East Europe.

Areas of strength

To synthesise the performance of universities by regions and subject areas, I have grouped the 14,335 listings from the 51 subject areas into five broad faculty areas to see their relative areas of strength. This also illustrates any disparities and where opportunities for capacity building can be found.

Both North America and Western Europe have the same distribution in the social sciences & management (26%), the natural sciences (24%) and engineering & technology (14%). This is broadly similar in arts & humanities, and life sciences & medicine.

For the East Asia & Pacific (excluding Australia and New Zealand), the highest proportion of listings fall in the natural sciences (25%), then social sciences & management (22%). Engineering & technology is third at 21%, followed by life sciences & medicine (18%) and arts & humanities (15%).

For Australia and New Zealand, the highest proportion is in social sciences & management (31%), followed by natural sciences (21%) and the lowest is in engineering & technology (14%).

For Latin America, the highest proportion is in social sciences & management (25%), followed by 22% for life sciences & medicine.

Central & East Europe’s highest proportion falls in the natural sciences (26%) and engineering & technology (25%).

For both the Arab States and South & West Asia, engineering & technology has the highest the proportion of subject listings (38% and 34% respectively). They have the highest proportion of all the world’s regions in these subjects.

In the case of Africa, 26% of subject listings fall under life sciences & medicine, followed by social sciences & management (24%) and then the natural sciences at 21%.

Central Asia has only 18 listings and 39% of them are in the arts & humanities.

Capacity building

Although the number of universities participating in rankings has increased across the globe, universities from North America and West Europe have not only the highest volume of participation in the global rankings, but also remain at the top of the world’s rankings and are the most competitive when it comes to rating who is best at subject level.

The dominating North America and Western Europe regions attract a disproportionately high share of votes in reputation surveys and publication and citation count. These are the measures which drive the QS rankings by subject.

The ongoing rise of Asian universities (particularly those from China) continues unabated. This reflects the significant investment made in higher education and research endeavours in Asian countries.

For emerging economies, the key message for policy-makers is that in order for universities to be competitive, either regionally or globally, they must be funded at a greater rate than currently.

The next edition of QS World University Rankings (due in June) and the subject rankings (due next March) are likely to show the first signs of how the pandemic is affecting universities’ performance.

Let us hope that these regional asymmetries that we currently see do not increase sharply. A key challenge for university leaders is to continue to foster closer cooperation and exchange programmes to build capacity in the countries and world regions which need to strengthen their national systems.

Angel Calderon is principal advisor, planning and research, at RMIT University in Australia. He is a rankings expert and a Latin American specialist.