ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects Methodology 2024
1. Ranking Subjects
In ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2024, institutions are ranked in 55 subjects across Natural Sciences, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences.
2. Candidate Universities
The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects has scrutinised the universities that have published a certain number of publications during the period of 2019-2023. The publication threshold is set differently for different subjects. Bibliometric data are collected from Web of Science and InCites.
2024 ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects Selection of Universities
Web of Science categories are mapped to 55 academic subjects (mapping relations).
3. Scoring
The Rankings use a range of objective academic indicators and third-party data to measure the performance of world universities in relevant subjects, including categories such as World-Class Faculty, World-Class Output, High-Quality Research, Research Impact, and International Collaboration. The World-Class Faculty category introduces four new indicators: International Academic Award Laureates (Laureate), Highly Cited Researchers (HCR), Chief Editors of International Academic Journals (Editor), and International Academic Organization Leadership (Leadership). The World-Class Output category encompasses Top Journal Papers (TJ) and International Academic Awards (Award), along with Q1 Journal Papers (Q1) under the High-Quality Research category, Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) under Research Impact category, and International Collaborated Papers (IC) under International Collaboration category. The indexes of top journals, international academic awards, and key academic organizations are based on Academic Excellence Survey (AES) conducted by ShanghaiRanking.
For each indicator, institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top-scored institution, then the square root of the percentage is multiplied by the allocated weight. The final score is obtained by adding the score of each indicator, and universities are ranked in descending order.
In calculating the CNCI score, the maximum value of CNCI in a subject is set as the lower value of: (1) either twice of the average CNCI for all institutions in this subject; (2) or the maximum of the CNCI for all institutions in this subject. The CNCI score of the institution is calculated as the proportion of their CNCI to the maximum value. If an institution’s CNCI is higher than the maximum value, its CNCI score is assigned as 100%.
4. Definition of Indicators
| Category | Indicator | Definition |
| World-Class Faculty | LAUREATE | International Academic Award Laureates (Laureate) refers to the number of full-time faculty members employed by an institution as of April 2024 who have received significant international academic awards within an Academic Subject. The significant awards in each subject are selected through ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Excellence Survey. 46 prestigious international academic awards across 32 subjects were identified by the Survey. Only those laureates who are currently 80 years old or younger are counted. If a laureate receives multiple awards within the same subject or receives the same award in different years, this laureate is counted only once. |
| World-Class Faculty | HCR | Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) are faculty members at an institution who have demonstrated significant influence in their Academic Subjects, as selected by Clarivate. The Highly Cited Researchers list issued in January 2024 was used for calculating the HCR indicator in GRAS 2024. If a Highly Cited Researcher receives recognition in more than one Academic Subject, each subject is counted separately. Only the primary affiliations of Highly Cited Researchers are considered. |
| World-Class Faculty | EDITOR | Chief Editors of International Academic Journals (Editor) measures the number of faculty members employed by an institution who currently serve as chief editors of international journals indexed by SCIE, SSCI and AHCI from 2021 Journal Citation Report (JCR) by Clarivate as of December 2023. The chief editors include Editor-in-Chief, Co-Editor, Deputy-Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, Associate Editor, Executive Editor, etc. Different weights are set according to the positions and number of chief editors holding the same position. The weight for Editor-in-Chief and equivalent positions is 200%, and the weight for Deputy-Editor-in-Chief and equivalent positions is 100%. The weight is equally assigned to chief editors holding the same type of positions within the same journal. Only the primary affiliations of chief editors displayed on the journals official website are considered. |
| World-Class Faculty | LEADERSHIP | International Academic Organization Leadership (Leadership) refers to the number of faculty members employed by an institution who currently hold leadership and senior executive positions in key international academic organizations as of April 2024. These positions include President, Vice President, Secretary General, Associate General Secretary, and other leadership roles within governing bodies such as executive committees, boards, or councils. The Key International Academic Organization in each subject are nominated through ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Excellence Survey. In 2024, 22 international academic organizations across 17 subjects were selected by the Survey. Different weights are set according to the positions and number of leaders holding the same positions. The weight for President and Secretary General is 200%, and the weight for Vice Presidents, Associate Secretary General and other leadership positions is 100%. If multiple leaders hold the same type of position within the same organization, the weight is equally assigned to them. Only the primary affiliations of the current leaders displayed on the organization’s official website are considered. |
| World-Class Output | TJ | Top Journal Papers (TJ) is the number of papers published in Top Journals or Top Conferences within an Academic Subject by an institution during the period of 2019-2023. Top Journals and Top Conferences are nominated by distinguished scholars through ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Excellence Survey. In 2024, 170 top journals identified by the Survey are used in rankings of 46 Academic Subjects. In Computer Science Engineering, 26 selected top conferences are also taken into account this year. For the remaining 8 Academic Subjects, Q1 category journals that primarily belong to the respective Academic Subject are used as substitutes. Only publications classified as Article” are considered. If a Top Journal has not published any Article type papers in the period of 2019-2023, the number of Review type papers is counted instead. |
| World-Class Output | AWARD | International Academic Awards (Award) refers to the total number of the staff of an institution winning a significant award in an Academic Subject since 1991. Staff is defined as those who work full-time at an institution at the time of winning the prize. If a researcher retired at the time of winning the award, we count the institution where the researcher’s last full-time academic position was held. The significant awards in each subject are nominated through ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Excellence Survey. 46 prestigious international academic awards across 32 subjects were identified by the Survey. If a winner is affiliated with more than one institution at the time of winning the award, each institution is assigned the reciprocal of the number of institutions. If the award is awarded to more than one winner in one year, weights are set for winners according to their proportion of the prize. Different weights are set according to the periods of winning the prizes, diminishing by 25% each retrograde decade. The weight is 100% for winners in 2021-2023, 75% for winners in 2010-2020, 50% for winners in 2000-2010, and 25% for winners in 1991-2000. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is selected for Biological Sciences, Human Biological Sciences, Clinical Medicine, and Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences. Winners of this award are assigned to one or more subjects according to the topics of their recognized contributions. If a contribution belongs to more than one subject, the winner will be counted once for each relevant subject. |
| High Quality Research | Q1 | The number of influential journal publications (Q1) is an important measure of an institution’s research output in the corresponding subject. Q1 refers to the number of papers published by an institution in an Academic Subject within journals ranked in Q1 based on the Journal Impact Factor during the period of 2019-2023. Only publications classified as “Article” are considered. Data are collected from Web of Science and InCites. Publications from different Web of Science categories are grouped into relevant Academic Subjects. |
| Research Impact | CNCI | Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) is the ratio of the citations received by an institutions published papers to the average citations of papers in the same category, year, and type of journal publication within an Academic Subject during the period of 2019-2023. A CNCI value of 1 represents world-average performance. A CNCI below 1 indicates that the citation times of this group publications are lower than the average level, while a CNCI above 1 signifies that the paper’s citation performance exceeds the average level. Only publications classified as “Article” are considered. Data are collected from InCites database. |
| International Collaboration | IC | International collaboration (IC) is an indicator used to evaluate the level of international collaboration in the respective subject between institutions. The ratio of the number of publications that have been found in at least two different countries in addresses of the authors to the total number of publications in the respective subject for an institution during the period of 2019-2023. Only publications classified as “Article” are considered. Data are collected from InCites database. |
5. Data Sources
| Indicator | Sources |
|---|---|
| LAUREATE |
Academic Excellence Survey (AES).
https://www.shanghairanking.com/activities/aes;
official websites of the
top awards
selected by AES
|
| HCR | Highly Cited Researchers. https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/ |
| EDITOR |
Journal Citation Reports (JCR).
https://jcr.clarivate.com/jcr/home;
official website of journals indexed by JCR 2021 |
| LEADERSHIP |
Academic Excellence Survey (AES).
https://www.shanghairanking.com/activities/aes;
official websites of the
key international organizations
selected by AES
|
| TJ |
Academic Excellence Survey (AES).
https://www.shanghairanking.com/activities/aes;
official websites of the
top journals
selected by AES
|
| AWARD |
Academic Excellence Survey (AES).
https://www.shanghairanking.com/activities/aes;
official websites of the
top awards
selected by AES
|
| Q1 | InCites database. https://incites.clarivate.com/#/analytics |
| CNCI | InCites database. https://incites.clarivate.com/#/analytics |
| IC | InCites database. https://incites.clarivate.com/#/analytics |
6. Indicators and Weights
Different weights are allocated to the indicators for different subjects, as listed below.
2024 ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects Indicators and Weights
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