Ranking Web of Universities: January 2009

[Isidro F. Aguillo]

The new edition of the popular Ranking Web of World Universities 
(http://www.webometrics.info) has been published at the end January 
2009. With more than three million visitors per year this public 
independent academic Ranking is beating again competitors for providing 
the largest and updated classification of Higher Education Institutions 
worldwide. The coverage includes institutions beyond position 200 or 500 
that means many developing countries institutions are now ranked.

In this edition a special effort has been made to better reflect the 
performance and impact of the Universities through their Web presence, a 
crown indicator that takes into account not only research results, but 
academic excellence and community engagement.

The Ranking shows a concerning academic digital divide between North 
American and European universities as the first ones (US & Canada) 
represents more than 60% of the 200 first positioned institutions. On 
the first positions of the ranking are MIT, Stanford and Harvard 
universities, although other well known names as Yale, Purdue, Johns 
Hopkins or Princeton appears more delayed. It is also worth to mention 
the good results obtained in general by the Canadian universities.

The University of Cambridge, which goes down the list until 28th 
position, continues being the first European university that appears in 
the ranking followed by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) of 
Zurich and the University of Oxford. Nordic universities like Helsinki 
and Oslo universities continue to improving their positions in the 
ranking. And also the universities of Utrecht, Vienna or Bologna show an 
interesting progress. Although 5 of the Top 10 European Universities are 
British, there are more German (15) than UK (10) universities among the 
Top 50 European Universities, with French and Italian ones 
underrepresented. For Eastern Europe the Czech Charles University and 
the Russian Lomonosov Moscow State University are among the world best 
200, but their Polish counterparts appear delayed.

Australian National University (48^th ) and UNAM from Mexico (44^th ) in 
Latin America are improving their positions not only as regional leaders 
but also close to world leaders’ status. The Japanese Universities 
appear delayed comparing with research-based rankings mainly because the 
intensive use of their local language in the websites, although Tokyo 
and Kyoto universities are improving their positions. Also, it is worth 
to mention the progress of universities like the National Taiwan 
University, Peking University, the University of Hong Kong and the 
Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Regarding Research Centers the Ranking 
(http://research.webometrics.info/) is headed by the large US Research 
bodies (NIH & NASA). The growing interest in the climate change related 
issues explains the third position of the NOAA. The most important 
changes are related to the French institutions now in top positions of 
Europe, with CNRS placed in 5th position worldwide.

Check out also:

Ranking Web of Hospitals http://hospitals.webometrics.info/

Ranking Web of Repositories http://repositories.webometrics.info/

Ranking web of Business Schools http://business-schools.webometrics.info/

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Isidro F. Aguillo
Cybermetrics Lab
CCHS - CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28, 3C1. 28037 Madrid. Spain

Ph. 91-602 2890. Fax: 91-602 2971

isidro.aguillo @ cchs.csic.es
www. webometrics.info
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