世界一流大学的“共性”特征——基于“ARWU”、“THE”与“QS”排行榜的分析

Common Characteristics of the World-class Universities:Based on the Statistical Analysis of "ARWU", "THE" and "QS" World University Rankings

2003年6月,ARWU首次发布世界大学排名,其初衷是为了找到中国顶级大学在世界大学中的位置及其与世界一流大学之间的差距,为建设世界一流大学提供参考。ARWU偏好注重科学研究的研究型大学,这使得一些专注本科教育的大学(如美国的文理学院)名次普遍偏低。2010年后各自独立发布世界大学排名的THE与QS,由于"师承同宗",两者的指标体系几近相同,都包含了科研、教学和国际化程度三项指标,并加入了学术声誉等定性指标,在不同程度上弥补了ARWU单纯采用定量指标的不足。三个排行榜不同的指标设计及权重分配,导致同一所大学在不同榜单上的不同表现,但哈佛大学、斯坦福大学、麻省理工学院、剑桥大学、普林斯顿大学、加州理工学院、牛津大学等7所大学同时出现在三大榜单前10名中,且在历年排名中名次基本稳定。这7所大学之所以成为世界一流大学的样板,存在一系列共性特征:拥有世界领先的科研成果、一流的教师队伍、优质的生源、超凡的人才培养能力、充裕的财政投入、优良的硬件设施以及高水平的国际化程度等。建设世界一流大学,既要参照世界一流大学的"共性"特征,也要避免盲目跟从。遵循教育规律,创造性地传承民族传统文化,借鉴人类高等教育改革发展的文明成果,积极探索中国化的世界一流大学之路。

Since the State Council promulgated ' overall scheme to promote the construction of world first-class universities and disciplines' in November 2015,the issues about ' what a worldclass university is', 'how to build a world-class university',etc.have become hot,and there have been a lot of relevant research literatures.In order to participate in the above discussion,this paper selects three most influential world university rankings( ' ARWU', ' THE' and ' QS')as the research object,and analyzes their index design,weight distribution and ranking results. ' ARWU' was first published in June 2003,whose initial purpose was to find the global standing of top Chinese universities and the gap between them and the world-class universities,so as to provide references for building the world-class universities.To ensure the scientificity and impartiality of the ranking,ARWU,based on transparent method system and public data from the third party,mainly assesses the scientific research performance of the world universities.It is just for that reason that most universities which focus on undergraduate education,such as liberal arts colleges in the United States,generally rank low.After 2010, ' THE' and ' QS' published their own world university ranking independently.Because they both develop from the 'THE-QS world university ranking',theirindex system turn out to be similar,both considering about universities' performance of scientific research,teaching and international outlook,as well as employing qualitative indicators such as academic reputation to make compensation for the deficiency of ARWU,which simply adopts quantitative indicators.Compared with 'ARWU', 'THE' is more comprehensive and scientific,for 'THE' contains the 'industry income' indicator to evaluate the third core mission for universities the level of social service(although only accounts for 2.5%).Through the statistical analysis of 'ARWU(2015)', ' THE(2014-15)' and ' ARWU(2014-15)' world university rankings,this study finds out that,even though their index design and weight distribution is different,Harvard University,Stanford University,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Cambridge University,Princeton University,California Institute of Technology and Oxford University appear simultaneously in the top 10 of the three lists,and their rankings remain stable over the years.Therefore,as a representative of the world-class universities,these seven universities become the main research object of this research,and its indicator scores in the three major rankings also become the basic data sources when this paper comes to study the common characteristics of the world-class universities.Analysis shows that the reason why these universities become the model of the world first-class universities is that they have the common characteristics:World's leading scientific researches,world-class teaching staffs,high quality students,extraordinary ability of talent cultivation,plenty of financial input,excellent hardware facilities and high-level 'internationalization',etc.These characteristics not only ensure that the seven universities will rank top 10,but will make references for the construction of world-class universities in China,especially for those universities who want to sprint to the world first-class university.However,it should be noted that the real world-class university is diverse.The way that Harvard and other six universities become the world's top 7is unique and cannot be duplicated.When building a world-class university,top Chinese universities should not only refer to 'common' characteristics of the world-class universities,but avoid just blindly follow.To create a Chinese version world-class university,Chinese universities must combine with the practical situation of China,follow the law of education and creatively inherit the outstanding traditional Chinese culture,taking civilization achievements of the reform and development of the human higher education as reference.