Argentine universities have a strength.
They are well placed in the disciplines related to
the Arts and Humanities
.
But they have, at the same time, a weakness or rather aspects to improve.
They are
weak in the scientific area
: in the productivity and quality of research.
This is one of the conclusions that emerges from the latest
QS ranking by subject
, which measures -precisely- the performance of the world's universities in the different areas of study or knowledge.
As in previous editions,
the UBA once again stood out in the country and by far.
Once again he placed
five disciplines among the 50 best in the world.
And four of them improved compared to last year.
They are Modern Languages (21), Petroleum Engineering (29), Anthropology (26), Law (34) and Sociology (42).
The QS ranking by subject - prepared by the British consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds - does not refer to careers but to
areas of study or knowledge.
This is so because the races take on various names in different parts of the world.
The UBA is the first in
number of ranked disciplines (33 in total).
They are followed by the nationals of La Plata (15 disciplines) and Córdoba (9).
But La Plata and Córdoba do not have any discipline in the top positions.
A UBA student.
Other universities that appear in the ranking, between positions 51 and 100, are the
University of Palermo (in Art and Design)
and
the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA) in Theology
.
And in the band 101-150, the ITBA (Petroleum Engineering) and the Di Tella (Politics and International Studies).
The Faculty of Engineering UBA, where Petroleum Engineering is taught, one of the areas of knowledge in which that university stood out.
Maxi Faila
For Martín Juno, a QS analyst who deals with Argentina, “the UBA has two distinctive advantages in the country: its
solid historical reputation
worldwide, and access to human and financial resources.
In both areas there are few universities, not just from Argentina, but from Latin America that can be at their level, ”he told
Clarín
.
Ricardo Gelpi, rector of the UBA, said that "this recognition is an impulse to continue working in the same direction and continue to position ourselves as a benchmark in the field of science and education."
Ricardo Gelpi, rector of the UBA.
Luciano Thieberger
This edition of the QS Ranking measured
15,700 university programs
from
1,594 universities
located in
93 locations around the world
.
Reviewing the results you can see some interesting data.
For example, that
Agriculture
is the discipline with the best performance in Argentina (10 classified in total),
Medicine at the UBA
is the one that has improved the most,
Geophysics at the UBA
produces the research with the greatest impact in Argentina and
Law at the UCA
is the which has most improved research citations.
The country's performance remained stable, with 22 programs improving, 19 declining, and 38 remaining unchanged, plus 2 ranking for the first time.
Internationally, the US is the country that leads the most subjects (32) and
Harvard University is the one with the best results
(1st place out of 14, two more than last year).
China is the second country with the most ranked programs.
The Canadian from Toronto is the one with the most subjects in the top 50, with 48. And the University of Chile achieves the highest position in Latin America, with Engineering - Mining and Minerals (8).
Humanities up, science down
Why the good location of Argentine universities in arts and humanities?
“It's hard to know,” Will Barbieri, from QS, told
Clarín
. “In some cases, historical and cultural influences come into play.
For example, Germany consistently stands out in Philosophy, while Italy is home to the two best departments of Ancient and Classical History in the world.
Sometimes the influences can be more socioeconomic, agriculture in Brazil or oil engineering in the Arab region are some examples”.
UBA students.
“It is a wide area, and Argentina shows solid results in many disciplines, such as Architecture, Art and Design, and Modern Languages.
They are largely based on reputation indicators, while science ones are more investigative.
Therefore, in places like Argentina, which are not very focused on research, it is the Arts and Humanities that tend to shine,” she added.
Among the
pending accounts
is, precisely, science.
Barbieri says that “Argentina has seen an improvement of 4% in recent years, which is no small thing.
But it is below the world average in research indicators.
Improving your research infrastructure and agenda with an external focus on international collaboration should be your top priority,” he states.
university rankings
QS elaborates its ranking by subject based on four parameters:
academic reputation
(based on perception surveys),
employer reputation
(the same), number of
citations in
scientific
papers
and, finally,
an index that measures productivity and impact. of research
, based on the
papers
most cited by other scientists and the number of
papers
cited.
A class at the UBA.
Now, all these parameters have
a different weight according to the specificity of each subject
.
For example, research performance - based on analysis of the Scopus/Elsevier database - is considered a stronger indicator in Medicine, where the discipline is heavily dependent on research, than in the Arts.
The QS ranking is one of the four global rankings of universities that are carried out year after year, and that
are gaining more and more political and media influence.
Unlike others, such as the one in Shanghai (China) and the CWUR (Saudi Arabia), QS (along with the Times, also English) assigns great weight to "reputation", which is elaborated from perception surveys.
Rankings such as those of Shanghai and the CWUR, on the other hand, build their measurements by giving greater weight to more "objective" data, such as the number of professors with Nobel prizes or published papers.
The one that is known this Wednesday is the QS ranking specifically broken down by study areas.
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