CWUR Center for World University Rankings 2024 | Must-know for Students

• Publisher: CWUR Center for World University Rankings, United Arab Emirates
• Latest ranking publication date: 13 May, 2024
• Publication frequency: Annual
• Geographic focus: Global
• Ranking type: University rankings.
• Year of first publication: 2012
• 2000 universities in ranking

The Center for World University Rankings set themselves a task apart when they developed their methodology: assessing quality of education, faculty, alumni outcome and research output without the use of surveys or university data submissions.

Research performance is the most weighty of the four main factors (40% of total score). The data used to compile the scores comes from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. They consider the number of papers published, the number of articles which appear in top tier journals, publications in journals considered to be highly influential, and the number of highly cited papers.

The CWUR ranking shares some common traits with the Shanghai Ranking, in that their evaluations of both faculty quality (10% of total score) and quality of education (25%) take into consideration the number of awards etc won by both faculty and students/alumni. In this case, though, the list of awards considered is much broader: 30 awards in addition to Nobel prizes and Fields medals, which mediates some of the criticism that this factor automatically favours older institutions.

The fourth factor, alumni employment, is worth a quarter of the total score for all institutions. It calculates the percentage of alumni with top executive positions in the world’s largest companies. Companies which fall under this category are those which appear on the Forbes Global 2000 list.

Types of Data Collected Directly by the Publisher

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External databases/data providers used

Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science Web resources related to Prizes awarded Forbes.com

Criteria Classification

• 75% Academic Performance
• 25% Student Outcome (alumni employment)

• Research publications and citations
• Academic reputation - survey or other
• Student Survey
• Internationalization (% of foreign staff/students/exchange)
• Employer reputation survey or Salary data

Methodology

https://cwur.org/methodology/world-university-rankings.php

Rating

3.0 / 5.0

Popularity

Google results for: CWUR "Centre for World University Rankings": 21000

PROS

• evaluation of a massive 20,000 universities
• completely different methodology to other major rankings agencies

CONS

• subject ranking not updated since 2017
• high value placed on Forbes Global 2000 list

Practical use

The CWUR ranking might definitely be among the list of rankings a potential student might want to consult. The different methodology gives another take on the schools evaluated, especially as we leave behind the usual suspects who always top the lists.

Criticism

Regardless of whether or not you agree that awards and academic distinctions are a sign of the quality of an institution, this ranking certainly has an interesting take on university assessment. Personally, I am not convinced by the 25% value awarded to the percentage of graduates working as executives in the Forbes Global 2000 companies. My vote would go more towards innovators and small business success stories. But, I may be in the minority in that regard.