The complete information can be consulted with different filter possibilities on the NTU website: http://nturanking.csti.tw/. Egida’s website provides additional information and historical series: https://egida.usp.br/ntu/.
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Photo: Fábio Durand/USP Imagens
Published at the beginning of September, the 2024 edition of the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities by the National Taiwan University (NTU) lists USP as 68th in the world, first among Ibero-American institutions, and the only Brazilian in the top 100.
Of the top ten, four are in the United States, including first-placed Harvard and second-placed Stanford. Three are British, two are Chinese and one is Canadian.
In the historical series, USP has fluctuated, rising 29 places from 2022 to 2023, and now falling 16 places in 2024.
The ranking also lists separate areas of knowledge. In this section, USP has several highlights, ranking among the top 100 in the areas of Agriculture (9th), Life Sciences (42nd), Medicine (83rd), and Natural Sciences (86th). In Social Sciences, the University was ranked 134th and in Engineering 380th, out of a total of 1,561 universities worldwide.
The institutions were evaluated based on eight indicators, organized into three criteria:
| CRITERIA | 2024 NTU RANKING UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS | WEIGHT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research productivity | Number of articles in the last 11 years (2015-2023) | 10% | 25% |
| Number of articles in the current year (2023) | 15% | ||
| Impact on research | Number of citations in the last 11 years (2015-2023) | 15% | 35% |
| Number of citations in the last 2 years (2022-2025) | 10% | ||
| Average number of citations over the last 11 years (2015-2025) | 10% | ||
| Research excellence | h-index for the last 2 years (2022-2025) | 10% | 40% |
| Number of highly cited articles (2013-2023) | 15% | ||
| Number of articles in high-impact journals in the current year | 15% | ||
The coordinator of USP’s Office for the Management of Academic Performance Indicators (Egida), Fátima Nunes, explains the particularities of this index: “The NTU World University Ranking evaluates the performance of universities exclusively based on bibliometric indicators, extracted from scientific production indexed in a specific database, which is the Web of Science. In general, these databases do not cover all academic production equally, favoring some areas, especially the exact and biological sciences, which can especially affect the performance of large institutions, such as USP.”
Fátima also comments on the fluctuations that are recorded in each edition of the publication and how the University can use this data: “The indicators are considered in different time frames. For example: citations in the last two years and publications in the last 11 years. Thus, it is possible that we have significant production in some areas over a period of time, but that has not been accounted for because it is not in the Web of Science database. Small variations over the years are therefore normal. In this case, although it lost a few positions compared to the previous edition, USP improved its score in half of the indicators evaluated. All these considerations are important when reading the data so that USP can use the information when it makes sense for the University’s mission. Some indicators and ranking methodologies can be questionable for us because they are not part of this mission,” she explains.
Fátima Nunes – Photo: Personal archive
In addition to USP, other Brazilian higher education institutions appear on the list, three of which are among the 500 best in the world: the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), in 402nd place; the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in 421st place; and the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (Unesp), in 491st place.
| WORLD RANKING | UNIVERSITY | COUNTRY | GRADE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvard University | USA | 97,6 |
| 2 | Stanford University | USA | 61,5 |
| 3 | University of London, University College London - UCL | United Kingdom | 61,4 |
| 4 | University of Toronto | Canada | 60,5 |
| 5 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 58,4 |
| 6 | Johns Hopkins University | USA | 56,7 |
| 7 | Tsinghua University | China | 55,8 |
| 8 | Zhejiang University | China | 55,6 |
| 9 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 55,3 |
| 10 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | USA | 54,9 |
| 68 | USP | Brazil | 43,2 |
Política de uso
A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.
A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.