Why I (mostly) hate league tables

There are many reasons to object to league tables, and the table above illustrates one of them very well: a tiny change in what you measure results in a big change in league table position.

The three columns rank research institutes according to three different, but similar, metrics. Yet the resulting rankings give very different results. For example, the Max Planck Society tops the first two tables, yet falls to 20th place in the third.

That 20th place ranking illustrates another objection I have to tables such as these. The metric on which the institutes are judged in third column is measured to two decimal places. This is bizarrely specific for something that has a number of subjective features. The definition of a "highly cited paper" is arbitrary, and being cited is itself somewhat arbitrary (and, indeed, may not be evidence that the paper being cited is good: the citation may be a criticism, contradiction or refutation).

Of course, there is an exception to every rule. The table below, in which the University of Cambridge is ranked number one, is entirely beyond any criticism.

(As is this year’s Tompkins table, which ranks Cambridge colleges by exam success. Trinity College comes top. By happy coincidence, I was at Trinity :)