NUS 116th, NTU 310th in Worldwide University Rankings of Research Competitiveness

Wuhan University's reports were meant for a Chinese audience: they are in Chinese and carry nationalistic overtones. For the benefit of people who don't read Chinese, I've made a quick translation of the executive summary written by the team behind the rankings.

The report unintentionally casts Singapore's research aspirations in a negative light - not only is Singapore's top research university ranked 116th worldwide, Singapore does not make the top 30 list of countries in research competitiveness.

While universities in the United States have been trying to tame the frenzy of the college admission process and even break out of the rankings "game," China's rise in recent years has fueled an insatiable appetite for rankings that benchmark Chinese universities against the global research powerhouses like Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Tokyo U, München and Toronto.

From personal conversations, I am of the (possibly misguided) opinion that Chinese students are particularly ranking-obsessed and brand-conscious. NUS and NTU attract Chinese students because they have reputations that place them as superior to most Chinese universities, especially with NUS/NTU's extensive links to prestigious US/UK universities. Of course, they are also more affordable and less selective than Imperial or Johns Hopkins.

What could/should NUS/NTU continue to do to attract and retain top research talent? Yet another personal story that may not be representative: I've a friend who's currently a PhD student at NUS is thinking of leaving for a more prestigious US PhD program she's been accepted into.

Currently, Singapore seems to have played the game rather well, balancing the needs of creating a prestigious perception (to attract foreign students) and building competitive systems (research ties with other universities and attracting research talent). As with many things in Singapore, the most unfortunate group may be local students who feel they've been taken for granted. Locals also tend to be cynical about the high rankings NUS/NTU received from certain reports and argue that the universities have placed brand building over student welfare and their education missions.

What do you think?

(The methodology of this series of rankings, as with many before, is suspect. For example, the rankings consider the nine universities that make up the University of Texas as one university, yet list UC Berkeley and UCLA as separate universities.)