Malaise in the Italian Higher Education Sector? Not a single Italian University in the WorldҀs Top-100 Universities

The analysis 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, with the 2008 rankings published on 15 August 2008.

The assessment paid special attention to G8 countries, an international forum which brings together the heads of state of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia. The hypothesis was that G8 countries would be well-represented in the WorldҀs Top-100 Universities.

The analysis found that, with the exception of Italy, all of the G8 countries had one or more universities in the WorldҀs top-100 Universities in 2008. The breakdown was as follows: United States (54), United Kingdom (11), Germany (6), Canada (4), France (4), Japan (4), Russia (1) and Italy (0). This data clearly highlights the performance of universities in the US and, to a lesser extent, those in the United Kingdom. It also highlights the poor performance of Italian universities. The first Italian university in the WorldҀs top-500 Universities is the University of Milan (ranked 101-151), the University of Pisa (101-151) and the University of Rome ր Sapienza (101-151).

The poor position of Italian universities is striking and may highlight a malaise in the higher education sector in Italy. It is possible the way the way the rankings are calculated is a disadvantage to Italian universities, as the system favors English-speaking indicators of academic performance (e.g. publications in English-speaking journals). However, other non-English speaking countries in the G8 countries, including France, Japan and Russia, performed better than Italy.

Factors which may explain the poor performance of Italian universities include poor management practices, lower levels of university funding, the high number of students enrolled in Italian universities (e.g. the University of Rome ր La Sapienza has a staggering 147,000 students) and the limited number of private universities (compared to the US).

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.