Penn State ranked among top 50 world universities
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Academic Ranking of World Universities
(ARWU) has released its 2012 ranking of the top 100 world-class
universities and has ranked Penn State at No. 49. Penn State is one of
53 highest-ranking institutions in the United States, 30 in Europe and
17 among Japan, Israel, Canada and Australia. Penn State is one of five
Big Ten universities and one of only two Pennsylvania schools to make
the top 50.
Researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai
Jiao Tong University conduct the annual ARWU ranking using six
objectives. According to its website, these are: "the number of alumni
and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited
researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles
published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed
in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index,
and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution."
Researchers also break down rankings by some individual fields.
Engineering at Penn State ranks 11th in the world, while Penn State's
social sciences ranks 23rd, economics and business is 33rd, physics is
37th and natural sciences/mathematics is 44th worldwide. Penn State
mathematics, chemistry and life/ag sciences are in a group ranking of
the top 51 to 75 programs in the world.
The complete ARWU list is here and detailed methodology can be found here.