2016 KUBS Worldwide Business Research Rankings released

Korea University Business School ranked 74th. The rankings are based on analyses of more than 40,000 publications from 86 business journals. The University of Pennsylvania ranked No. 1, followed by Erasmus University and the University of Michigan. The rankings are recognized as a broader evaluation on research capabilities compared to the UTD Rankings, which mainly focuses on Western universities.

The Center for Business Research Analytics at Korea University Business School released the 2016 Korea University Business School Worldwide Business Research Rankings™ (KUBS Rankings).

This year, the University of Pennsylvania took first place, followed by Erasmus University and the University of Michigan. In Asia, City University of Hong Kong (No. 8) and the National University of Singapore (No. 9) were in the top 10, while the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (No. 20) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (No. 23) placed within the top 20. Among universities in Korea, Korea University was the one and only university to place within the top 100, ranking 74th. Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (139th), Yonsei University (164th) and Seoul National University (167th) were also on the list.

According to the rankings, Korean universities have made great leaps forward this year. Although the actual rankings were not high, KUBS went up from 75th to 74th this year. KAIST moved up 36 places from 175th in 2015, while Yonsei University went up 19 places from 183rd in 2015 and Seoul National University also moved up the list from 171st in 2015.

KUBS Rankings, released each autumn, is based on analyses of over 40,000 publications listed in 86 business journals. It is an evaluation index which shows research capabilities of business schools in the world. The rankings include Worldwide Rankings (as an overall index), Rankings by Academic Area, and Rankings by Journal. The Areas indicate seven research areas of business studies: Accounting, Finance, Management, Management Information System (MIS), Marketing, Operations Management & Management Science (OM/MS), and International Business (IB) & Strategy. To make the 2016 Rankings, five years of publication data from 2011 to 2015 was collected. The top 300 universities were decided based on the sum of converted scores which reflect the number of authors and their affiliations.

In comparison with the UTD Rankings based on only 24 journals, the KUBS Rankings conduct analyses on a broader scope of data in order to evaluate the research capabilities of business schools worldwide. While the UTD Rankings seem to select publications which may favor universities in the United States, the KUBS Rankings have expanded its evaluation criteria to include a variety of publication data. By doing so, it is believed to provide a more practical evaluation, which prevents universities in the European and Asian regions from unfairly being undervalued.

“Every year, we release the KUBS Rankings with an aim to conduct a more independent and inclusive evaluation on business schools in the world,” Soo Young Kwon, Dean of Korea University Business School said. “It has been recognized as one of major indexes in the business field as it is based on a database of all the publications from prestigious business journals. We have been receiving inquiries from universities around the world.”

The Worldwide Rankings and two other rankings are available at kubsrankings.korea.ac.kr.