this list seems very unreasonable. I mean it is impossible to construct a ranking among the different cultural and educational systems. Totally absurd indeed. Seems like made by some stupid Chinese scholars!!!
It has an extremely heavy bias toward the hard sciences. This is why certain small state schools appear much higher on the list than certian Top tier private institutions. If your school is really strong in social science, but week in hard sciences, you'll get nailed by this ranking system. Jon
In the early 'eighties, I saw a list of the world's top twenty or so law faculties. Four or five were in the Soviet Union! There WAS such a thing as a growing body of Socialist Law but I don't think the University of Moscow really trumped, say, Oxford or Standford.
It's not a very well thought out ranking. Way too much emphasis on Nobel Prize winners. There was previous discussions on a prior thread: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12262
The proper name is "Moscow State University", and it is good. But I feel even more scepticizm towards Soviet law. There is an urban legend about Ukrainian radio personality who included in his children's show "a fairytale about Soviet Constitution". It was 1930ies. The man disappeared right after the show aired.
This ranking system has absolutely no relevance for my academic discipline. That being said, it is fun and affirming to find both of the institutions with which I have been registered for postgraduate work included on this list. Those of us who comprise the student body of the University of Pretoria can chant "We're number 401-450! We're number 401-450!"
On the site in Ranking Methodology "Academic performance per faculty. The academic performance scores in the above indicators divided by the number of full-time equivalent faculty. If the number of faculty for an institution can not be obtained, the original score is used for the institution. For ranking - 2003, the number of full-time equivalent faculty are obtained only for institutions in USA and China. If you could provide us statistical information on the number of faculties of institutions in your country, we would very much appreciate. " That is why many european school out of this rank.
"Performance per faculty indicator, the number of full-time equivalent faculty are obtained only for institutions in USA and China. " How about university not obtain information? lost 20%, right?