The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities or NTU Ranking is a ranking system of world

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

scientific paper : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scienti ...

volume, impact, and performance output. The ranking was originally published from 2007 to 2011 by the

Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan The Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT; {{zh, t=財團法人高等教育評鑑中心基金會) was founded in May 2005. HEEACT applied for ISO certification in July 2008 and received certification on 4 February ...

(HEEACT) and has been published since 2012 by the

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

. It uses bibliometric methods to analyze and rank the scientific paper performance. In addition to the overall ranking, it includes a list of the top universities in six fields and fourteen subjects. The rankings were introduced in 2007. The original ranking methodology favored toward universities with medical schools. In 2008, HEEACT began publishing a "Field Based Ranking" including six fields:

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

and environmental sciences (AGE),

clinical medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practice ...

(MED),

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

, and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

(ENG), life sciences (LIFE),

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

(SCI), and

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

(SOC). In 2010, HEEACT began publishing subject rankings in fields of various field of science and technology. Science fields are divided into

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, chemistry, mathematics, and

geosciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

. Technology fields are split up into electrical engineering,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

(including

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

and fuels), materials science, and

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

(including

environmental engineering Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that encompasses broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and ...

). HEEACT ended the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities Project in 2012. Due to disagreement about ranking results, the Taiwanese education authorities announced that the government would no longer support the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan to do this ranking. The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities has been published by the

since 2012, and the ranking is also known as the NTU Ranking.

Methodology

The HEEACT rankings used the following criteria: * Research productivity (weighed 20%)—The number of published articles of the last 11 years (10%) and the number of articles of the current year (10%). * Research impact (weighed 30%)—Number of

citations A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...

of the last 11 years (10%), the number of citations of the last two years (10%), and the ''average'' number of citations of the last 11 years (10%). * Research excellence (weighed 40%)—The

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

of the last two years (20%), the number of highly cited papers (15%), and the number of articles of the current year in high-impact journals (15%). Quantitative data were drawn from

Science Citation Index The Science Citation Index Expanded – previously entitled Science Citation Index – is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964 and ...

(SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The data were normalized by faculty number to account for different institution sizes. The indicators used in this methodology highly emphasized research quality (80% of the performance score) and short-term research performance (55% of the score).

HEEACT World University Rankings (Top 50)

HEEACT World University Rankings (Top 20 by field)

Agriculture & Environment Sciences

Clinical Medicine

Engineering, Computing & Technology

Life Sciences

Physical, Chemical

Social Sciences

HEEACT World University Rankings (Top 20 by subject)

Physics (includes Astronomy and Space Science)

Chemistry

Mathematics

Geosciences

Electrical Engineering

Computer Science

Civil Engineering (including Environmental Engineering)

Mechanical Engineering

Chemical Engineering (including Energy & Fuels)

Materials Science

Commentary

The Australian higher education indicated that the 2007 performance ranking of scientific papers for world universities produced by HEEACT is a useful addition to the present world university ranks because of its rigorous method and robust results, which are made possible by its more modest scope. There are more comments on the HEEACT rankings. The senior research fellow of Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, Wu Yi-shan, claimed that the HEEACT ranking is the best ranking system he has ever seen. Wu indicated that the HEEACT ranking considers both long-term and short-term performance of a university. The idea of combining long-term and short-term ranking indicators is a pioneering thought. Richard Holmes posted on University Ranking Watch and noted: "Although the Shanghai rankings show a high correlation with other rankings (based on a tiny sample of US universities) the HEEACT rankings from Taiwan do somewhat better." Vice-president Research for the University of Toronto, Professor Paul Young, remarked that "the HEEACT rankings are relatively new, they are an important and methodologically robust measure of the quantity and quality of research performed by universities around the world." The dean of academic affairs at National Taiwan University, Chiang Been-Huang, stated that "2009 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities by HEEACT are conducted based on objective figures."Kao, Y.L. (2009
NTU ranks 26th in Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
Retrieved Aug 5, 2009)

Notes and references

{{University ranking systems University and college rankings Science and technology in Taiwan