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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on October 10, 2009 at 1:26pm

The latest edition of the world's top universities from The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) has few surprises in 2009. The top 10 Universities are: Harvard (US), Cambridge (UK), Yale(US), UCL, London (UK), Imperial College, London and Oxford (both UK, joint 5), Chicago (US), Princeton (US), MIT, Massachusetts (US) and California Institute of Technology (US). As always, the top of the list is dominated by American and British Universities this year, together making up about 40% of the entire list of 200. The US universities account for more than a quarter, while the UK institutions make up about 15% of the top 200 universities. Outside of the US and the UK, there is fair representation of Australian, Canadian and European institutions and a smattering of Asian universities from China, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

The number of Asian universities in the list of top 100 has increased from 14 to 16. The University of Tokyo, at 22, is the highest ranked Asian university, ahead of the University of Hong Kong that stands at 24.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/10/worlds-top-universities-in-2009.html

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on May 31, 2012 at 10:22am

Here are the names of 6 Pakistani universities among top 300 Asian universities ranked by QS 2012:

#108 NUST Islamabad

#191-200 University of Karachi

#201-250 Agha Khan University Karachi

#201-250 Univ of Engg & Tech (UET) Lahore

#251-300 Lahore University of Management Sciences

#251-300 University of Lahore

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on March 1, 2015 at 12:08pm

Haaretz: Israeli lecturer takes part in Pakistan conference

The fact that he (Prof Ramzi Suleiman )is an Israeli Arab drew a positive response from many of the Pakistani scientists, who were interested developments in Israel and the Palestinian Authority and spoke about the importance of cooperation in the field of science. ....Participating in the conference were some 200 physicists and mathematicians from various countries, including China, England, Japan, Switzerland and the U.S., in addition to researchers from a number of Pakistani universities.

Suleiman represented the University of Haifa and Al Quds University, where he teaches.

Suleiman, who was among the speakers invited to the conference, spoke about the Newtonian Theory of Relativity, which he proposes as an alternative for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

He focused on the implementation of the proposed theory to understand the dynamic of the universe, including the dynamic of dark energy, black holes in the centers of galaxies and the evolution of chemical elements in the universe.

http://www.haaretz.com/.premium-1.644835

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on October 14, 2017 at 10:17pm

A blot that no #Indian university is among world’s top 500: PM #Modi | India News - Times of India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/a-blot-that-no-indian-uni...

PATNA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday described as a "blot" the fact that Indian universities did not figure among the world's top 500, and said the government had decided to give autonomy and Rs 10,000 crore to India's top 10 public and 10 private universities over the next five years to make them world-class.

Addressing the centenary celebrations of Patna University here in the presence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, Modi said the institution should compete for a place among the top 20 universities in the country.

He said the top 20 universities would be selected by an independent jury.

"The government wants to free the top universities of government control. I invite Patna University to compete for that as it would be much greater than getting a central university status," the PM said.

Nitish had earlier made a fervent appeal to Modi to grant central university status to PU and said everyone was looking towards him with a lot of hope. This was the first time Modi had shared the stage with Nitish Kumar after JD(U)'s return to the NDAfold.

Modi also pointed out how many top civil servants working across the country were from the Patna University. "I interact with 100-150 officials every day and a large number of them are from PU," he said.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2022 at 2:50pm

#Columbia University #ranking scandal raises questions over sky-high value of an #IvyLeague education. The university drops in #US News & World Report rankings from 2nd to 18th place after admitting to cheating on data submitted. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/columbia-university-ranking-scandal-... via @YahooFinance

Caught fluffing its numbers by one of its own professors, one of America’s elite eight Ivy League undergraduate schools admitted handing in homework cribbed to score higher on a placement test.

Columbia University, located in Upper Manhattan, had been ranked the second best in the prestigious 2021 U.S. News & World Report annual ranking, thanks to the use of “outdated and incorrect methodologies.” It has since been bumped down to 18th as a result of the scandal.

The charges are serious given the ongoing debate over the value of a typical college degree in the humanities, given tuition has been among the largest drivers of national inflation. Last month President Joe Biden ended a fractious debate over the hot-button political issue of student debt by ordering a portion of the over $1.6 trillion owed to the federal government to be canceled.

The admission is furthermore extremely embarrassing as academic honesty is considered the cornerstone of higher education. Students found to have cheated on an exam or plagiarized sources without attribution are subject to immediate disciplinary action that often can involve expulsion.

“Anything less than complete accuracy in the data that we report—regardless of the size or the reason—is inconsistent with the standards of excellence to which Columbia holds itself,” the university said in a statement on Friday.

Unlike in other countries, the college one attends is often much more important to potential employers than what degree they received or the strength of their grade point average. Ivy Leagues are considered the benchmark when it comes to teaching the country’s best and brightest young minds how best to analyze problems and arrive at a solution or present a logically compelling argument.

Harvard University, which has long bragged about the number of applicants it receives every year, can charge its students an arm and a leg for their education given it could only accept a record low 3.2% of applicants for its 2026 undergraduate class in April.

‘Bogus rankings’
This culture fosters a heavy emphasis on ranking, boiling down the varied experiences of a university to a narrow number of key performance indicators. Prospective college students and their parents scour the annual special edition of U.S. News & World Report every year before making a decision as to where to apply for admission.

According to Columbia’s own calculations, tuition for this academic year alone costs $65,000; add on room and board, and you’re talking $86,000 with typically three more years still to come before a student has earned his or her undergraduate degree.

Even after adjusting for inflation, nonprofit think tank College Board estimated the cost of tuition at an average private university during the 2020–21 year has doubled relative to where it was 30 years prior. For public universities, it has nearly tripled.

Should a university like Columbia be found not to apply the kind of intellectual rigor expected, it could suffer substantially when attracting the best students and professors, not to mention raising donations from wealthy and successful alumni.

The Columbia professor who flagged the issue
Michael Thaddeus, the Columbia mathematics professor that discovered the inconsistencies, poured scorn on the system of rankings.

“Does it make sense to conclude from this folly that Columbia is the 18th best American university, worse than Cornell but better than Berkeley?” he told Gothamist. “Of course not—that would be ridiculous. The only thing that makes sense is paying no attention to these bogus rankings at all.”

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on February 23, 2025 at 4:11pm

China leads the world in physics research as US a distant rival, Nature Index shows | South China Morning Post

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3297914/china-leads...

The world’s top organisations for high-quality physics research are all in China or Europe, with the US’ highest-ranked institution coming in at No 13, according to the latest Nature Index.A China-based observer said this could have far-reaching implications for the United States’ technological edge, with physics underpinning much of modern technology and innovation. But another highlighted America’s overall lead in original research breakthroughs.The Nature Index – maintained by the prestigious journal of the same name – ranks research institutions based on their contributions to articles published in the world’s most influential scientific journals.The latest list was based on research output in the 12 months from November 2023.

China dominated the top 10, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Tsinghua University taking the top three spots.Only two non-Chinese institutions broke into the top 10 – the Max Planck Society in Germany at No 4 and the French National Centre for Scientific Research at No 10.

The top three US institutions – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Stanford University – were ranked at 13th, 16th and 20th, respectively.

In the 2021 index, by contrast, the three American institutions were in the top 10, while only two from China – CAS and USTC – made it into the group.

The Nature Index measures two different scores – count and share. An institution receives one point for each article with at least one affiliated author, and these points add up to the institution’s count score.For the share score, each article is assigned a value of one, which is divided equally among all authors. For example, for an article with 10 authors, each receives a share value of 0.1. Each institution’s share score is calculated by adding the share values of the authors from that institution.

In the latest list, CAS leads by a wide margin in both metrics, while the Max Planck Society is the only non-Chinese research organisation in the top five.However, a CAS physicist warned that while the index was an informative measure of the strength of research institutions, it did have its limitations and the rankings should be taken with a pinch of salt.“The increasing number of high-quality scientific papers published by Chinese researchers in top journals in recent years reflects to some extent that China’s overall strength in physics research is on the rise,” said Chen Xiaolong, a physicist at the Institute of Physics under CAS.

But this metric was not everything, he said. “China still lags behind the United States overall in terms of original and truly groundbreaking research breakthroughs, except for a few branches,” Chen said.Analytical instrumentation engineer Jin Xianchi, who holds a doctorate in physics from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), was of the same view. He said many factors were behind the rankings.“Chinese and European labs tend to have larger teams, so it is easier to produce more influential papers,” Jin said. On the other hand, some notably pioneering research may not be accepted by academic journals at first, which could put an innovative organisation at a disadvantage.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on February 23, 2025 at 4:14pm

China leads the world in physics research as US a distant rival, Nature Index shows | South China Morning Post

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3297914/china-leads...


“The increasing number of high-quality scientific papers published by Chinese researchers in top journals in recent years reflects to some extent that China’s overall strength in physics research is on the rise,” said Chen Xiaolong, a physicist at the Institute of Physics under CAS.

But this metric was not everything, he said. “China still lags behind the United States overall in terms of original and truly groundbreaking research breakthroughs, except for a few branches,” Chen said.Analytical instrumentation engineer Jin Xianchi, who holds a doctorate in physics from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), was of the same view. He said many factors were behind the rankings.“Chinese and European labs tend to have larger teams, so it is easier to produce more influential papers,” Jin said. On the other hand, some notably pioneering research may not be accepted by academic journals at first, which could put an innovative organisation at a disadvantage.

However, according to Jin, there has actually been a decline in America’s overall leadership in scientific research since World War II – including in physics. He said this had happened for a variety of reasons, including a brain drain.Physics is the foundation on which most modern technological developments and cutting-edge research are based. And throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the US has been the leading destination for physics research, accounting for nearly 100 Nobel Prizes in the field.“A decline in the level of research over a period of time is bound to have implications for the future,” Jin said.

In 2018, an article in Forbes magazine warned that the US was at risk of “no longer attracting the best and brightest minds in physics”.An American Physical Society survey cited in the article showed that the country had seen an unprecedented drop in the number of international applications to physics PhD programmes over the previous year.Meanwhile, a number of Chinese physicists have chosen to leave the US in recent years.

In January last year, for example, award-winning Chinese-American physicist Gao Huajian joined Tsinghua University as a full-time professor. More recently, computational physicist Chen Hudong – an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering – left America after more than four decades to take up a full-time position in China.An annual Chinese report assessing scientific activities and trends in major countries, released last November, showed that China had regained the world’s top spot in physics research in 2024, after losing it to the United States in 2023.

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