How much does the number of top 2% researchers move the global rankings of the world’s top 100 universities?

Han Qi; Kang Hua Cao; Chi Kueng Woo; Haojie Cai

doi:10.1080/13504851.2025.2454533

How much does the number of top 2% researchers move the global rankings of the world’s top 100 universities?

Han Qi^*, Kang Hua Cao, Chi Kueng Woo, Haojie Cai

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › peer-review

Abstract

We use Stanford University’s two lists of top 2% researchers (T2R) based on these researchers’ career-long and single recent year impacts to find that (a) a top 100 university’s numbers of T2R move the university’s global rankings published by five ranking agencies; and (b) the elasticity between a university’s ranking and its number of T2R is approximately −1.0 and statistically equal across the five agencies. This means that a 1% increase in a university’s T2R count leads to an estimated 1% improvement in its ranking position.

Original language	English
Number of pages	4
Journal	Applied Economics Letters
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2025.2454533
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 19 Jan 2025

User-Defined Keywords

global university rankings
Stanford University
top 100 universities
Top 2% researchers

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1080/13504851.2025.2454533

Cite this

@article{b7a3e04232884ce39dcb28db7c0693d2,

title = "How much does the number of top 2% researchers move the global rankings of the world{\textquoteright}s top 100 universities?",

abstract = "We use Stanford University{\textquoteright}s two lists of top 2% researchers (T2R) based on these researchers{\textquoteright} career-long and single recent year impacts to find that (a) a top 100 university{\textquoteright}s numbers of T2R move the university{\textquoteright}s global rankings published by five ranking agencies; and (b) the elasticity between a university{\textquoteright}s ranking and its number of T2R is approximately −1.0 and statistically equal across the five agencies. This means that a 1% increase in a university{\textquoteright}s T2R count leads to an estimated 1% improvement in its ranking position.",

keywords = "global university rankings, Stanford University, top 100 universities, Top 2% researchers",

author = "Han Qi and Cao, {Kang Hua} and Woo, {Chi Kueng} and Haojie Cai",

note = "This study is funded by (a) the Ford Foundation [#134371 and #139746] and the Research Matching Grant Scheme of the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, (b) the Research Center for FinTech and Digital-Intelligent Management, Shenzhen University, and (c) the National Natural Science Foundation of China [#72473103]. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

year = "2025",

month = jan,

day = "19",

doi = "10.1080/13504851.2025.2454533",

language = "English",

journal = "Applied Economics Letters",