American University of Beirut

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022 was just released featuring over 1,500 institutions from around the world and addressing 51 different subject areas falling under five broad groups. Although operating under extremely harsh conditions, AUB has once again succeeded in improving its international standing in four broad subject areas. AUB’s highest ranking for broad subject areas was 194 (top 200 worldwide) for social sciences and management as well as arts and humanities (tie), while engineering and technology was tied at 231 and life sciences and medicine tied at 268. 

Furthermore, individual subject rankings saw AUB in the top 250 in the world in 13 categories, with development studies ranked 40 under the social sciences and management broad subject area, as defined by QS. Development studies relates to areas such as food security, agribusiness, urban planning, public transportation, renewable energies, public policy, climate change, air quality, waste management, economies for refugees, and other similar areas. These new achievements were in great part due to the strategic vision of AUB, Vital 2030, which placed great emphasis on solidifying community relevance and ensuring sustainability while serving society.

Civil and structural engineering as well as politics and international studies moved up in the individual subject rankings, rising to the 101-150 rank bracket, while nursing and archaeology were unranked before and this year attained the 151-170 and 151-200 range, respectively, along with medicine maintaining the same high rank as last year of 151-200.

The subject ranking was initiated by QS in response to the high demand by prospective students for subject-level comparison which is more effective due to the elimination of differing characteristics by discipline. The results of each of the subject rankings are compiled using five indicators normalized by the five faculty areas with weightings adapted for each discipline. 

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“AUB’s strongest indicator remained the employer survey which is at the heart of the ranking assessment along with the global academic survey,” noted Jean Abi Saab, senior institutional analyst at AUB’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Decision Support (IEDS). “Furthermore, AUB proved to be a pillar in providing quality and impactful research through the two research-related indicators (citations and H-index).”

​Source: QS Subject Ranking Methodology

The first two indicators are the global surveys of academics and employers undertaken by QS which assess the international reputations of institutions in each subject by drawing on survey responses from 130,000 academics and 75,000 graduate employers worldwide. AUB’s best performance is in development studies and in nursing in which it scores 69 and 99.5 over 100, respectively, in each of the academics’ and employers’ surveys.

The second two indicators assess research impact, based on citations per paper and Hirsch or H-index in the relevant subject. The strongest AUB scores were in the medicine citations per paper (90.1 ) and in business and management H-index (73.3). 

The H-index determines the relative paper quality by measuring both the productivity (# of cited papers) and impact (# of citations received in other publications) of the published work of a group of scientists or scholars per subject. For instance, an H-index of 73 means that 73 papers published by the institution from 2015 to 2019 attracted at least 73 citations in six years (2015-2020). While the citation per paper represents the impact and quality of the research work done by institutions, on average per publication.

Finally, the fifth index International Research Network – IRN, recently included in the broad subject areas, measures sustainable research partnerships based on the number of locations and international partners. AUB scored the highest at 70 in the life sciences and medicine.