In recent years the publication of broad and narrow subject rankings has become common. They can be helpful to students and other stakeholders seeking more detailed data than that found in overall rankings but there might be problems if the number of data points is very small.
The Shanghai Rankings, Times Higher Education (THE), Round University Rankings and CWTS Leiden ranking, among others, now produce subject rankings either separately or as an option in the main rankings.
The latest QS World University Rankings by Subject have just been released. There are 48 subject and five broad subject rankings. The methodology uses four indicators, two of which, academic reputation and employer reputation, are extracted from the QS world rankings. The other two are research citations per paper and H-index.
They show that US universities are slipping although the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard still lead for number of first places.
Top Universities in broad subject rankings:
Arts and Humanities; University of Oxford
Engineering and Technology; MIT
Life Science and Medicine; Harvard University
Natural Sciences; MIT
Social Sciences and Management; Harvard University.
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