How COVID-19 is Transforming University Rankings

The pandemic may provide Chinese universities an opportunity to close the gap with American institutions.

Without a doubt, the year 2020 has been one of the most challenging periods that higher education has had to endure. The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has shown how universities worldwide have become crucial to developing departments of research, public health, and scientific knowledge in their native countries. The complicated scenarios raise great concern for these institutions’ financial futures that have contributed considerably during this period.

These effects produced by the pandemic become visible in the rankings in the latest publication of the World University Rankings by Times Higher Education (THE). This ranking, carried out since 2001, is governed by 13 indicators grouped into the following five areas: teaching  (30%), research (30%), citations or research influence (30%), international vision (7.5%), and industry revenue  (2.5%).

The 2021 edition includes more than 1500 universities from 93 countries, of which 27 of them have at least one university among the 200 best. The Top Ten does not take us by surprise. The University of Oxford (United Kingdom), for the fifth year in a row, took first place, followed by Stanford and Harvard, which climbed several positions since the 2020 edition.

Top 10 World University Rankings

1. University of Oxford (UK)

2. Stanford University (US)

3. Harvard University (US)

4. California Institute of Technology (US)

5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)

6. University of Cambridge (UK)

7. The University of California, Berkeley (US)

8. Yale University (US)

9. Princeton University (US)

10. The University of Chicago (US)

Among the best countries represented in the tables are the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, China, and Japan. The latter two have climbed in many university rankings, such as the QS Ranking and the Shanghai Ranking. China is significantly advancing positions after experts forecast growth in the country that catalyzed the pandemic.

China makes its way into the world rankings

According to Times Higher Education results, since last year, the Asian country has doubled its institutions within the top 100, from three to six. Most of its top 20 universities have maintained or improved their performance. Wei Zhang, a professor at the University of Leicester, mentioned for Times Higher Education that the fact that the pandemic is having a more significant impact in the United States could accelerate China’s progress in keeping up with the country’s research. “The pandemic may give Chinese universities the opportunity to close the gap with US institutions.”

It is anticipated that the Asian country will become home to universities with the most potential to contribute to research. However, both the pandemic and geopolitical tensions could hinder their progress.

China’s performance in THE world rankings

1. Tsinghua University (# 20 overall ranking)

2. Peking University (# 23 overall ranking)

3. Fudan University (# 70 overall ranking)

4. University of Science and Technology of China (# 87 overall ranking)

5. Zhejiang University (# 94 overall ranking)

6. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (# 100 overall ranking)

On the other hand, higher education in the United States finds itself in a not-so-promising situation. Although the country continues to dominate the tables, half of its top 20 institutions have descended in the rankings. Zhang claims that the coronavirus crisis “leaves the US higher education sector in a critical financial position, with ongoing consequences, like the reduction in university income and expenditure and laying off temporary teaching and research staff, affecting research productivity and institutional reputation, which are central to global university rankings.”

This comparison assumes relevance when analyzing the expectations of educational leaders in both countries. The survey organization, Leader Survey, found that 87%  of participating educational authorities in North America expect that there will be financial bankruptcies of universities, compared to 17%  of the respondents in East Asia.

“The pandemic can provide Chinese universities the opportunity to close the gap with the US institutions.“

Similarly, the report of THE World University Rankings points out that the Asian country is eliminating disparities between these two countries in research. For the first time this year, the quality of scientific exploration belonging to mid-range universities is beginning to be leveled. This is replicated in funding for research, where China outperforms the United States in the latest edition.

“In the long run, China’s rise could pose a threat to the dominance of the United States’ universities in the rankings,” mentions Marijk van der Wende, professor at the University of Utrecht.

Latin American Academia

The consequences of this period are not replicated in the same way in Latin American academia. Ellie Bothwell writes that the pandemic has forced a reassessment of higher education, especially in this region. “Brazilian universities have been hit with large funding cuts since 2019 and faced restrictions on the
number of researchers who can travel to international conferences. In Chile, there have been protests regarding the high cost of higher education. And in Venezuela, there has been a huge drop in the amount of research being produced by scholars.”

“The role that universities play in scientific research and their teaching quality will represent an important part of their profile in the future.”

In the ranking, Latin American universities’ representation fell back in some sectors and was reinforced in others. A total of 18 institutions, most of them in  Brazil, were among the top 800. Other Latin American countries best represented in the tables are Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Peru.

In the ranking of Latin American universities in THE Latin American University Rankings, published in July, Jamaica ranks for the first time in the top 20, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile tops the list. Uruguay is the only new country to enter the rankings, and in Mexico, Tecnológico de Monterrey climbed to fourth place. However, many other institutions are in decline in their ranking positions because of low teaching scores. On the other hand, QS classifies the Autonomous University of Mexico and Tecnológico de Monterrey among the top five universities in Latin America and the two best in Mexico.

Top Latin American universities 2020

1. Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (Chile)

2.  University of São Paulo (Brazil)

3. University of Campinas (Brazil)

4. Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico)

5. Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil)

6. Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) (Brazil)

7. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) (Brazil)

8. University of Chile (Chile)

9. Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil)

10. São Paulo State University (UNESP) (Brazil)

Spanish Universities

In this classification, the universities of Spain that stand out are the Pompeu Fabra  University (#152),  the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (#182), and the University of Barcelona (#198). It should be noted that Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), founded in 1994, is the only Spanish online university to be on the table between 601-800 positions. Based in Barcelona, this institution offers more than 27 degrees and 44 master’s degrees and has about 50,000 students enrolled. This online university ties in a position with Open University in the UK, a leader in e-learning.

Sequels to the pandemic

The effects of coronavirus are visible in the tables’ specific metrics, such as scientific research and teaching quality. The unforeseen shift in higher education to the online modality has emerged, in some scenarios, to potentialize international interactions among universities and bring about an unprecedented increase in scientific research.

Without a doubt, universities’ role, especially in these two areas, will represent an essential part of their profile in the future. Louise Richardson, Vice-Rector of the University of Oxford, explains to THE that the research profile of the university “profile has never been higher than it is at present,” an aspect that has successfully maintained the institution in the rankings.

However, the growing amount of scientific research during this period has raised some suspicions in educational areas. An article in Nature suggests that the speed and rate of research publications on the coronavirus pose a risk to information quality and transparency. Many scientific journals have had to work with previously unknown collaborators,  producing articles under too tight deadlines, making scientific publications during the pandemic an added challenge of the COVID-19 crisis.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Paola Villafuerte

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