World University Research Rankings
This new index is designed through a novel and fresh methodology from the existing ones (i.e. Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), TIMES Higher Education and Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)) to evaluate 3 key components:
- research multi-disciplinarity,
- research impact, and
- research collaborative-ness.
In addition, WURR will be useful to stakeholder with the following functions:
Students who want to persue further studies or research, would be able to gain insights on the strengths and quality of faculty and research in the university, and the ranking serves as an added boost to how the university can improve themselves in the different areas of research.
In an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment defined by disruption, with one recent example being Covid-19, innovative solutions and value creation from multi-disciplinary collaborative R&D will be pivotal to tackling the multi-faceted challenges of our world and profoundly re-shape the future of Industries, Governments, Societies and Universities. As the first of its kind, WURR is designed to measure and benchmark multi-disciplinary collaborative research; wholly derived from performance-centric evidence-based data, it offers an unique unvarnished insights for organisations in the 3P sectors (Private, Public, People) to identify university partners best positioned to deliver optimal returns on R&D investment, so as to create game-changing transformational impact.
Together, these form a new and differentiated composite index under this research assessment framework for universities. Data is derived objectively based on secondary data compiled by OECD’s schema in Web of Science’s InCites through a ten-year period from 2009 to 2018.
The aim of this evidence-based new index is to offer insight into applied research undertaken by world universities, which have become the major driving forces behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The goal is to inform universities objectively how they compare to their peers; in areas of applied research underscored by their relative strengths and weaknesses; raise awareness and promote research collaboration and multi-disciplinary research. The indicators that were chosen reflect this aspiration to assist universities to better understand how they can seize opportunities in this increasingly complex and inter-connected world, and to focus on how universities research excellence can be assessed holistically with respect to how they are able to harness the synergies created from bringing together multi-disciplinary and collaborative teams to sustain and elevate research impact.