The first attempt worldwide has been made to compare entire national higher education systems, rather than individual institutions. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a career and education intelligence provider, has created a preliminary university ranking technology, known as SAFE (System, Access, Flagship, Economics) in order to collate data.

SAFE utilizes latest research emerging from the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008 - available on www.topuniversities.com - to draw comparisons across 40 countries.

The innovative methodology provides a direct comparison between the world’s higher education-providing nations.

It contains new criteria which avoid the pitfalls of ranking nations simply according to the number of universities those nations have in the top 200.

Developed over the last twelve months by QS, SAFE allows a more direct comparison between two nations using four key criteria:

System: the capacity of each country to produce world-class universities, taking the number of universities that each country has in the top 500 of the THE-QS World University Rankings and dividing it by their average position.

Access: how good a country’s system is at getting students into internationally reputable universities, calculated by taking each country’s number of full-time equivalent students at the top 500 universities, factored against its population.

Flagship: a score based on the position of the top institution in each country, according to the THE-QS World University Rankings listed www.topuniversities.com.

Economic: acknowledging countries that have a viable university system despite their relative wealth, and awarding points for high-performing schools compared with the country’s GDP per capita.

Ben Sowter, head of the QS Intelligence Unit behind the SAFE methodology, says: “Each country faces different economic and demographic realities. This preliminary analysis attempts to take these into account whilst evaluating the success of each national system in terms of its global competitiveness.

It represents a first step in benchmarking the strength of different countries’ systems in today’s rapidly changing international higher education landscape.”

QS SAFE – National System Strength Rankings

Countries
Score
Rank
United States
100
1

United Kingdom
98
2

Australia
94
3

Germany
92
4

Canada
92
5

Japan
90
6

France
89
7

Netherlands
86
8

Korea, South
79
9

Sweden
79
10

Switzerland
79
11

Italy
77
12

Belgium
77
13

New Zealand
76
14

China
75
15

Hong Kong
72
16

Ireland
71
17

Finland
70
18

Taiwan
66
19

Austria
66
20

Denmark
66
21

Thailand
66
22

Israel
65
23

India
65
24

Singapore
63
25

Malyasia
61
26

Brazil
57
27

Spain
56
28

Greece
54
29

South Africa
54
30

Norway
53
31

Indonesia
53
32

Philippines
52
33

Mexico
51
34

Russia
49
35

Czech Republic
44
36

Poland
43
37

Chile
43
38

Argentina
41
39

Turkey
35
40

Source: QS Quacquarelli Symonds topuniversities.com