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The University Ranking by Academic Performance Research Laboratory ranks 2,000 colleges and universities around the world based on quantity and quality of its scholarly publications. Specifically, the ranking is based on six key performance indicators: number of articles, number of citations, total document count, journal impact total, journal citation impact total, and total number of publications made in collaboration with foreign universities.Harvard University ranks at the top of the 2014-2015 list with a total score of 600, which is nearly 10 points higher than the university that ranked second, the University of Toronto (590.15 score). The top 20 universities for quantity and quality of its scholarly publications are listed below.

Top 20 Colleges and Universities in the World for Scholarly Research

  1. Harvard University
  2. University of Toronto
  3. University of Oxford
  4. Johns Hopkins University
  5. University of Cambridge
  6. University College London
  7. Stanford University
  8. University of California Berkeley
  9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  10. University of Michigan
  11. University of Washington Seattle
  12. University of California Los Angeles
  13. University of Pennsylvania
  14. Columbia University
  15. Imperial College of London
  16. University of California San Diego
  17. University of Tokyo
  18. University of California San Francisco
  19. University of Chicago
  20. University of British Columbia

The Ratings

The highest rating in this ranking is A++. Of the 2,000 colleges and universities included in the ranking, only 107 received a rating of A++ (5%). In total, 245 universities and colleges received a rating of A+ (12%) while 402 received a B++ rating (20%). A significant number (595) of universities and colleges that were ranked in this analysis received a B+ rating (30%), and  497 received a B rating (25%).For comparison purposes, consider this: the top school, Harvard University, received a score of 600 while the school that ranked 2,000th, Hanoi Medical School in China, received a score of 38.24.You can follow the link at the beginning of this article to view the complete list of the top universities and colleges for quality and quantity of scholarly publications. You can also view results by country and region. For example, the top five colleges and universities in the United States and the United Kingdom based on scholarly research are listed below.

Top 5 Colleges and Universities in the United States for Scholarly Research

  1. Harvard University
  2. Johns Hopkins University
  3. Stanford University
  4. University of California Berkeley
  5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Top 5 Colleges and Universities in the United Kingdom for Scholarly Research

  1. University of Oxford
  2. University of Cambridge
  3. University College London
  4. Imperial College London
  5. University of Manchester

You can also view the rankings by field. For example, the the top five universities and colleges ranked for the technology, economics, and medical and health sciences fields are shown below.

Top 5 Colleges and Universities for Scholarly Research in the Technology Field

  1. Nanyang Technological University
  2. Harvard Univeristy
  3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  4. National University of Singapore
  5. Zhejiang University

Top 5 Colleges and Universities for Scholarly Research in the Economics Field

  1. Harvard University
  2. University of California Berkeley
  3. London School of Economics and Political Science
  4. Stanford University
  5. University of Chicago

Top 5 Colleges and Universities for Scholarly Research in the Medical and Health Sciences Field

  1. Harvard University
  2. University of Toronto
  3. Johns Hopkins University
  4. University of California San Francisco
  5. University College of London

You can also follow the link above to  read the complete description of each ranking criterion and to view previous rankings.Image: The City of Toronto licensed CC BY 2.0