《Editor’s Note: UNIST celebrates its 10th anniversary, this year. In its short history, UNIST has truly grown into a world-leading university to achieve its vision to advance science and technology for the prosperity of humankind. Besides, in terms of research quality, UNIST has been constantly outperforming its peers in various university assessments. UNIST News Center has organized this once again via the year end university assessment, featuring those stories.》
■ [Nature Index Normalized Ranking 2020] UNIST Tops in S. Korea, thus Ranks No. 21 Globally!
The Nature Index, published annually by the Nature publishing group, is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships that highlights the institutions and countries which dominated research in the field of natural sciences.
Recently the Nature Index has decided on a policy to evaluate the quality of research rather than the quantity of research and the size of institutions, thus has been trying to arrange new evaluation index for such provision. One of such attempts can be seen in Dimensions database from Digital Science & Research Ltd., a spin-off venture company of the Nature Publishing Group.
Along with the Dimensions database, the Nature Index annual tables include a new normalized Nature Index ranking. The new ranking considers the number of high-quality articles published as a proportion of an institute’s overall output in the natural sciences, as opposed to a simple raw number of articles. This measure is based on the share of articles published in 82 prestigious scientific journals, selected by an independent panel of scientists and tracked by the Nature Index database.
The 2019 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018. l Image Credit: Nature Index
The new normalized ranking conducted by the Nature Index 2019 is based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018. UNIST topped the list nationally with an index score of 9.12%, thus has been ranked No. 21 among academic institutions worldwide.
Among national universities, those featured in the top 100 list of the Nature Index Normalized Ranking 2019, are KAIST (8.9%, No. 25 Worldwide), POSTECH (7.6%, No. 43 Worldwide), DGIST (7.04%, No. 54 Worldwide), and GIST (6.16%, No. 77 Worldwide).
Meanwhile, UNIST has been also ranked No. 193 among the world’s leading universities in the Nature Index. This normalization method clearly demonstrates UNIST’s strength of qualitative research, which has been difficult to comprehend through the existing indicators. For more details, please refer to the following links.
[Maeil Business] Nature Index Founder Mr. Swinbanks, “Size is not everything …”
[Donga Science] “Researchers do not need to rely to much on Nature · Science · Cell … ”
[Nature Index] 2019 Annual Tables – Institutions by Normalized Share
■ [THE World University Rankings 2020 by Subject] Four of UNIST’s Subjects Remain Top Worldwide
The London-based Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2020 has released the subject-specific tables. The subject rankings are based on the same range of 13 performance indicators used in the overall World University Rankings 2020, but the methodology is recalibrated for each subject to suit the individual fields.
UNIST has made it onto the list of the following four areas: Engineering & Technology (No. 6 Nationwide, No. 101-125 Worldwide), Physical Sciences (No. 5 Nationwide, No. 126-150 Worldwide), Computer Science (No. 9 Nationwide, No. 251-300 Worldwide), and Life Sciences (No. 4 Nationwide, No. 151-175 Worldwide).
UNIST, in terms of citations, remained No. 1 in S. Korea, for three consecutive years, according to the 2019 THE World University Rankings. Besides, UNIST climbed to 20th place, up four places from its ranking last year, according to the 2019 THE Young University Rankings.
