Their methodology
The core of our methodology is the belief that expert opinion is
a valid way to assess the standing of top universities. Our
rankings contain two strands of peer review. The more important is
academic opinion, worth 40 per cent of the total score available in
the rankings. The opinions are gathered, like the rest of the
rankings data, by our partners QS Quacquarelli Symonds
(www.topuniversities.com) which has built up a database of e-mail
addresses of active academics across the world. They are invited to
tell QS what area of academic life they come from, choosing from
science, biomedicine, technology, social science or the arts and
humanities. They are then asked to list up to 30 universities that
they regard as the leaders in the academic field they know about,
and in 2007 we have strengthened our measures to prevent anyone
voting for his or her own institution.
This year we have the opinions of 5,101 experts, of whom 41 per
cent are in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 30 per cent in the
Americas, and 29 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region. This includes
respondents from 2005 and 2006 whose data have been aggregated with
new responses from this year. No data more than three years old is
used, and only the most recent data is taken from anyone who has
responded more than once.
A further 10 per cent of the possible score in these rankings is
derived from active recruiters of graduates. QS asks major global
and national employers across the public and private sectors which
universities they like to hire from. This years sample includes
1,471 people, with 43 per cent in the Americas, 32 per cent in
Europe and 25 per cent in Asia-Pacific.
