A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. [5] [6] [7] [8] They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational knowledge transfer and the certification of new knowledge" through the awarding of doctoral degrees. [9] They can be public or private, and often have well-known brand names. [10]
Undergraduate courses at many research universities are often academic rather than vocational and may not prepare students for particular careers, but many employers value degrees from research universities because they teach fundamental life skills such as critical thinking. [11] Globally, research universities are overwhelmingly public institutions, while some countries like the United States and Japan also have well-known private research institutions. [5]
Institutions of higher education that are not research universities or do not aspire to that designation, such as liberal arts colleges, instead place more emphasis on student instruction or other aspects of tertiary education, and their faculty members are under less pressure to publish or perish. [12]
The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th-century Prussia in Germany, where Wilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision of Einheit von Lehre und Forschung (the unity of teaching and research), as a means of producing an education that focused on the main areas of knowledge (the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness. [13] [14]
Roger L. Geiger, "the leading historian of the American research university," [15] has argued that "the model for the American research university was established by five of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution (Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Columbia); five state universities (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and California); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (MIT, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Chicago)." [16] [17] The American research university first emerged in the late 19th century, when these fifteen institutions began to graft graduate programs derived from the German model onto undergraduate programs derived from the British model. [16]
Research universities were essential to the establishment of American hegemony by the end of the 20th century. [18] Most importantly, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and Princeton (along with Birmingham and Cambridge in the UK) directly participated in the creation of the first nuclear weapons (the Manhattan Project). [19] [20] [21] Besides that, Columbia and Harvard were instrumental in the early development of the American film industry (Hollywood), [22] MIT and Stanford were leaders in building the American military–industrial complex [23] and developing artificial intelligence, [24] and Berkeley and Stanford played a central role in the development of Silicon Valley. [25] The "most prestigious group of research universities" in the United States is the Association of American Universities. [26]
Since the 1960s, American research universities, especially the leading American public research university system, the University of California, [27] [6] [28] have served as models for research universities around the world. [29] [30] Having one or more universities based on the American model (including the use of English as a lingua franca) is a badge of "social progress and modernity" for the contemporary nation-state. [31] The Americans' continued dominance into the early 21st century has forced their European counterparts to confront the urgent need for reform to avoid "declining into an advanced form of feeder colleges for the best American universities." [32]
John Taylor, Professor of Higher Education Management at the University of Liverpool, defines the key characteristics of successful research universities as: [8]
Philip Altbach defines a different, although similar, set of key characteristics for what research universities need to become successful: [33]
A 2012 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report defined research universities, in the American context, as having values of intellectual freedom, initiative and creativity, excellence, and openness, with such additional characteristics as: [34]
Global university rankings use metrics that primarily measure research to rank universities. [35] [36] [37] Some also have criteria for inclusion based on the concept of a research university such as teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and conducting work in multiple faculties ( QS World University Rankings ), [38] or teaching undergraduates, having a research output of more than 1000 research papers over 5 years, and no more than 80% of activity in a single subject area ( Times Higher Education World University Rankings). [39]
The QS World University Ranking for 2021 included 1002 research universities. The region with the highest number was Europe, with 39.8%, followed by Asia/Pacific with 26.7%, the US and Canada with 15.6%, Latin America with 10.8% and the Middle East and Africa with 7%. All regions except the Middle East and Africa were represented in the top 100. The largest number of new entrants to the rankings were from East Asia and Eastern Europe, followed by Southern Europe. [40] By individual country, the US has the most institutions with 151, followed by the UK with 84, China with 51, and Germany with 45. The top 200 shows a similar pattern with the US having 45 universities, the UK 26 and Germany 12. [41] By comparison, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015) identifies 115 US universities as "Doctoral Universities: Highest Research Activity" and a further 107 as "Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity", while Altbach estimated that there were around 220 research universities in the US in 2013. [5] [42]
The Academic Ranking of World Universities shows a similar distribution, with 185 of their 500 ranked institutions in 2020 coming from Europe, 161 from the Americas, 149 from Asia/Oceania and five from Africa. All regions except Africa are represented in the top 100, although the Americas are represented solely by universities from the United States and Canada. [43] In 2023, the US has the most universities in the top 500 from a single country, 120, followed by China with 98, the UK with 38 and Germany with 31. [44] The top 200 shows the similar pattern: the US with 61 followed by China with 36 and the UK with 20. [45]
The 2024 Times Higher Education only gives a breakdown by country and only for its top 200; this again has the U.S. at the top with 56, followed by the UK with 25, Germany with 21, and China with 13. The top 200 features one university from Africa, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, but none from Latin America. [46] The U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Ranking 2021 gives numbers by country for the 1500 universities ranked from 86 countries: the U.S. is again top, with 255, followed by China with 176 and the UK with 87. [47] The 2020 CWTS Leiden Ranking includes 1,176 universities in the rankings from 65 countries: China tops the list for the first time, with 204, followed by the U.S. with 198, the UK with 58 and Germany with 54. [48]
Tsinghua University is a public university in Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of the Double First Class University Plan, former Project 985, and former Project 211.
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The university in its current form was founded in 1989, when the Queensland Institute of Technology (QIT) was made a university through the Queensland University of Technology Act 1988, with the resulting Queensland University of Technology beginning its operations from January 1989. In 1990, the Brisbane College of Advanced Education merged with QUT.
The Group of Eight (Go8) comprises Australia's most research intensive universities - the University of Adelaide, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of New South Wales, the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney and the University of Western Australia. It is often compared to the Russell Group of pioneering research universities in the United Kingdom.
College and university rankings order institutions in higher education based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while others assess institutions worldwide. Rankings are typically conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics. In addition to ranking entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools can be ranked. Some rankings consider measures of wealth, excellence in research, selective admissions, and alumni success. Rankings may also consider various combinations of measures of specialization expertise, student options, award numbers, internationalization, graduate employment, industrial linkage, historical reputation and other criteria.
Three national rankings of universities in the United Kingdom are published annually, by The Complete University Guide, The Guardian and jointly by The Times and The Sunday Times. Rankings have also been produced in the past by The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times. UK Universities also rank highly in global university rankings with 8 UK Universities ranking in the top 100 of the three major global rankings: QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Istanbul Technical University also known as Technical University of Istanbul is an international technical university located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is the world's third-oldest technical university dedicated to engineering and natural sciences as well as social sciences recently, and is one of the most prominent educational institutions in Turkey. ITU is ranked 108th worldwide in the field of "Engineering & Technology", and 255th worldwide in the field of "Natural Sciences" by the QS World University Rankings in 2023. The university has 92 undergraduate programs and 188 graduate programs in 14 faculties, 277,160 m2 of laboratory space, and 12 research centers.
Beijing Normal University is a national public university located in Beijing, China. The university is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China, and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and the Beijing Municipal People's Government. It is part of Double First Class University Plan, Project 985, and Project 211.
China Agricultural University is a national public university located in Beijing, China. The university is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. It is part of Double First Class University Plan, Project 985, and Project 211.
The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is a public university in Hefei, Anhui, China. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education of China, and the Anhui Provincial Government. The university is part of the Double First Class University Plan, Project 985, and Project 211.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, making it the first global university ranking with multifarious indicators.
Tilburg University is a public research university specializing in the social and behavioral sciences, economics, law, business sciences, theology and humanities, located in Tilburg in the southern part of the Netherlands.
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, often referred to as the THE Rankings or just THE, is the annual publication of university rankings by the Times Higher Education magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) to publish the joint THE-QS World University Rankings from 2004 to 2009 before it turned to Thomson Reuters for a new ranking system from 2010 to 2013. In 2014, the magazine signed an agreement with Elsevier to provide it with the data used in compiling its annual rankings.
QS World University Rankings is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE) magazine as Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings, inaugurated in 2004 to provide an independent source of comparative data about university performance. In 2009, the two organizations parted ways to produce independent university rankings, the QS World University Rankings and THE World University Rankings.
The Southern University of Science and Technology is a municipal public university in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It is owned by the City of Shenzhen and sponsored by the municipal government. The university is part of the Double First Class University Plan.
The University of Dhaka is a public research university located in Shahbag in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was established in 1921 as University of Dacca and it is the oldest active university in Bangladesh.
The University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) is a university ranking developed by the Informatics Institute of Middle East Technical University. Since 2010, it has been publishing annual national and global college and university rankings for top 2000 institutions. The scientometrics measurement of URAP is based on data obtained from the Institute for Scientific Information via Web of Science and inCites. For global rankings, URAP employs indicators of research performance including the number of articles, citation, total documents, article impact total, citation impact total, and international collaboration. In addition to global rankings, URAP publishes regional rankings for universities in Turkey using additional indicators such as the number of students and faculty members obtained from Center of Measuring, Selection and Placement ÖSYM.
Universities in Malaysia are ranked in a number of ways, including both national and international ranks.
This article presents an overview of university rankings in Pakistan. Within Pakistan, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) provides official rankings of higher education institutions (HEIs) nationally, based on a multitude of criteria. There are also various magazines, newspapers and international agencies/standards which provide rankings and analysis.
As of 2020, China had the world's second-highest number of top universities in several most cited international rankings including the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities and the Three University Missions Ranking.