An assessment carried out by AllAboutUni.com reveals that British universities dominate EuropeҀs top universities. AllAboutUni.com is an independent, global and inter-active website where users can obtain information about universities (global rankings, student reviews, university news and campus pictures). It publishes regular reports on universities around the world.
The assessment of EuropeҀs Top Universities is based on a ranking of the WorldҀs top 500 Universities produced by the Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several indicators of academic or research performance are used to establish the ranking, these include staff winning Nobel Prizes, highly cited researchers and articles indexed in major citation indices. The rankings have been published since 2003, and the 2008 rankings appeared on 15 August 2008.
The first point to be made is that universities in the United States dominate the worldҀs top universities. In the worldҀs top-25 universities, there are 18 universities based in the United States and only 4 in Europe. In the worldҀs top-10 universities, 8 of the universities are based in the United States.
The top-10 universities (listed in descending order) in Europe (2008) were: University of Cambridge (United Kingdom (UK)), University of Oxford (UK), University College London (UK), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Zurich (Switzerland), Imperial College London (UK), University of Manchester (UK), University of Paris VI (France), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), University of Utrecht (the Netherlands) and University of Paris XI (France). It is interesting to note that four of the top-10 universities in Europe are located in the two largest urban centres ր London and Paris.
Looking at the top-25 Universities in Europe, the United Kingdom is the clear leader with 9 universities. The following countries then follow: France (3), Germany (3), the Netherlands (2), Sweden (2), Switzerland (2), Finland (1), Denmark (1), Norway (1) and Russia (1). The first university based in Italy only appears in position 101-151 (three universities: University of Milan, University of Pisa and University of Rome ր La Sapienza) and the first in Spain in position 152-200 (University of Barcelona), clearly indicating that there is not a good relationship in Europe between population / economical size and the university rankings.
The dominant position of universities based in the United Kingdom is striking. The rankings may be biased by a tendency of the ranking system to favor English-speaking indicators of academic performance (e.g. publications in English-speaking journals). However, other factors probably play a role, these include better management practices (which are often more attuned to best-practices in North America), a more competitive national higher education market in the United Kingdom and a more global outlook.
The AllAboutUni.com website provides a portal where students can find independent information about universities from around the world. рThe website allows students to compare colleges and universities online based on independent information: the Shanghai rankings, student reviews and campus pictures. Combining this with the information provided by university websites, we hope students will be able to find the college or university of their dreamsҀ, says John Paget, Founder of the AllAboutUni.com website. John studied Economics at the London School of Economic and then completed graduate studies in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The AllAboutUni.com website was launched in November 2007.
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