Have Israeli universities declined in academic excellence or is there a statistical bias in the rankings? According to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University rankings index published Tuesday, Israeli universities are no longer among the top 100 academic institutions worldwide. The index shows a marked a drop in rank for all three of Israel's leading academic institutions. The universities, in response, insist that the index is statistically flawed. The top ten academic institutions, according to the QS rankings, are the University of Cambridge in first place, followed by Harvard, MIT, Yale, Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. American and British universities dominate the index, which ranked the schools based on a variety of parameters including academic peer review, citations per faculty member and student-faculty ratio. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem placed 120th in the list, a drop of 11 spots, while Tel Aviv University ranked 173rd, a 45-point dive. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, fell the furthest, to 220, a drop of 61 places. Israel's other academic institutions did not make the list. Israel's academy responded to the new results with skepticism. They questioned the objectivity of the rankings and suggested its parameters were flawed. For example, there is a parameter measuring the proportion of international students and faculty at the school, a parameter Israel can not possibly compete on internationally. Despite this, the Shanghai Jiaotong University in China Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) list for 2011 has placed the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at number 57 internationally, while both Tel Aviv University and the Technion fall within the top 150. Considered by some to be more accurate, the ARWU's list measures the number of articles published and cited in leading journals by university faculty, as well as the number of Nobel Prizes earned by both faculty and alumni. Responding to the QS rankings, Israeli academic institutions chose to emphasize the positive. "The Hebrew University is proud to remain Israel's leading research institution, as determined by the QS ranking for 2011," read a press release issued by the university. "Once again this year, the university was in the top 100 in the most important measurement, the number of facutly citations in academic journals, which shows how much international recognition our faculty receive." "The Hebrew University has maintained its level of excellence as indicated by the Shanghai index, which is considered the most objective university raking list and one in which the Hebrew University rose by 15 spots in comparison to last year, currently placing 57th world-wide," the statement read. Tel Aviv University said, for its part, that according to its measurement of international citations, the 2011 QS index ranked Tel Aviv University 14th in the world, just behind MIT and ahead of many other respectable academic institutions. The university considers this a major triumph, as its faculty is much smaller than that of many other universities cited in the index. For the most part the Technion brushed off the significance of the QS rankings, saying that as a science and technology research university "we only seriously consider our rakings under these parameters." The Technion added that "in the ARWU rankings published two weeks ago, the Technion placed 15th internationally in computer science."
