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Originally Posted by Crawford
The NY Times isn't the English paper of record because it's old. The UK's Times isn't a globally prominent publication; the BBC and Guardian are the UK's global news sources.
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The standing of the New York Times and The Times, or using a nebulous concept such as
’paper of record’ (which has been attributed to both) is pretty much irrelevant in relation to the point made by you. My challenge to your original point was that your insular thinking blinded you to the fact that the Times Higher Education is named as such because it was once part of The Times, the New York Times has nothing to do with it. Also questioning my understanding of irony… :lol:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
And, yeah, we consistently have these UK-originating lists where the UK is overestimated. London is always the world's financial and business center, even though its banks and corps are mostly European branches of U.S. HQ operations and its overall economy would only be 3rd within the U.S. and 2nd within Europe
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I wouldn’t agree that London is always placed at the top of the rankings that you refer to, but the size of the UK economy is pretty irrelevant when there is globalisation and international trade. I’ll just accept that as just another example of your insular thinking and perhaps limited insight of finance and business. Take the foreign exchange market; global turnover is in the region of c.$8 trillion each day, of which some 43% goes through London, 2.5x more US Dollars are traded in the London market than in the US. London is also a leader in other areas, and the case can be made for New York and other cities in other markets, but the limited domestic market size is one of the key drivers behind London’s success, it had to become internationally focused.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Oxbridge is always at the top of university rankings, even though endowment, research output, admissions rates and student yield are nowhere near the U.S. elites, and relatively minor cities like Manchester and Birmingham are consistently ranked above non-British cities with 5x the economic output.
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There are three rankings that I’ve seen referenced repeatedly (there could be others); the
QS World University Rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds, the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings by THE, and the
Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Their methodology is available to critique online and focuses on various indicators with weighting covering teaching quality, academic standing, research and citations. Perhaps there could be a discussion around the various indicators and weighting, but those are sound attempts to look at international comparisons.
As for the claims of potential bias, that Oxford and Cambridge are always at the top of these rankings:
- QS’s ranking places Oxford 4th and Cambridge 7th (having fluctuated/dropped in recent years).
- THE’s ranking puts Oxford 1st and Cambridge 3rd (go back several years and both were joint 6th).
- Shanghai Ranking Consultancy ranks Cambridge 3rd and Oxford 7th (both have risen over the years).
The majority of these lists are still dominated by US institutions and the accusations of bias come across as desperate.