Top 50 Social Sciences universities

17 November 2011

The social sciences subject table is utterly dominated by the English-speaking world.

The US takes 28 of the 50 places, followed by the UK with nine, Australia with five and Canada with three.

That leaves only five places for the rest of the world in a broad subject that encompasses business, communication, economics, education, geography, law, international relations and much more.

The table features nine countries, with just one institution apiece from the Netherlands, China, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.

Stanford University, joint second with Harvard University in the overall top 200 rankings, takes top spot in the social sciences table.

The institution has a strong record of producing leading economists and boasts several living Nobel economics laureates among its world-class faculty.

These include 1992 winner Gary Becker from Stanford's famous Hoover Institution and his colleague Douglass North, who shared the Nobel the following year for his work on economic history and institutional change.

Mainland China's sole representative in the top 50 is Peking University (30th).

While much recent research investment in China has gone into applied science subjects, Peking has focused on maintaining its centuries-old strength in social science disciplines, especially economics and law.

It has a 1,100-strong teaching staff in its School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Mainland Europe's only representative is the University of Amsterdam (joint 40th), one of the Netherlands' premier higher education institutions.

Its Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences hosts two of the university's 15 research priorities - urban studies and brain and cognition - designated by the institution as areas of world-class excellence to be nurtured.