UNIVERSITY PARK – The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has released its 2012 ranking of the top 100 world-class universities and has ranked Penn State at No. 49. Penn State is one of 53 highest-ranking institutions in the U.S., 30 in Europe and 17 among Japan, Israel, Canada and Australia. Penn State is one of five Big Ten universities and one of only two Pennsylvania schools to make the top 50.
Researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University conduct the annual ARWU ranking using six objectives. According to its website, these are: “the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index – Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution.”
Researchers also break down rankings by some individual fields. Engineering at Penn State ranks 11th in the world, while Penn State’s social sciences ranks 23rd, economics and business is 33rd, physics is 37th and natural sciences/mathematics is 44th worldwide. Penn State mathematics, chemistry and life/ag sciences are in a group ranking of the top 51 to 75 programs in the world.
The complete ARWU list is here and detailed methodology can be found here.
