Based on the measurement procedures, this project calculates a university’s score for each of the eight indicators in each of the six fields. For each indicator, the university with the highest number receives the maximum points (100); the other universities’ numbers are subdivided by the highest number and are converted decimally into their respective scores. For example, if University A has the highest number M for Indicator X, it receives 100 for that indicator, while University B with a number of N receives (N/M×100) for that particular indicator. Finally, the project calculates the final score of each university by the indicator weightings presented in Table 2 and sorts the universities by their final scores for each of the six fields. Universities with the same scores are sorted alphabetically. It should be noted that many universities obtain similar scores, and the slight differences of the final scores must be interpreted carefully. A university’s slightly higher score than another university’s may not necessarily suggest its superiority in scientific research because the two universities might be in very close proximity in the ranking.

The HEEACT ranking categorizes all subject disciplines into six fields and ranks each university’s performance by fields. Table 3 shows the six fields of the HEEACT field-based ranking. The detailed subject categories of each field are listed in the Appendix.

Table 3: Six Fields of the HEEACT Field-based Ranking

Appendix Subject Categories by Field