CoinDesk’s Top Universities for Blockchain, which CoinDesk announced this week, examines a university’s blockchain educational infrastructure using five key metrics: campus blockchain offerings, scholarly impact, employment and industry outcomes, cost and academic reputation.

In some cases, the universities with the best reputations – as measured by long-running generalized rankings – have the best blockchain offerings. But, in many cases, the two datasets don’t match. Several schools in our ranking “overperform” on blockchain and several “underperform” compared to their general scores.

Chart by Shuai Hao / CoinDesk

In the initial stages of the investigation, CoinDesk collected academic reputation data from USNWR Best Global Universities (2021), the QS World University Rankings (2022), the ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (2021) or the World University Rankings (2022). This data was used to calculate an external aggregate rank for each university in the sample.

At the close of the investigation, we compared a university’s blockchain rank, as determined by CoinDesk, against its aggregate rank from outside institutions. In some cases, a university’s blockchain rank was closely aligned with their external rank. However, in other cases there was larger amounts of variation. Below are the top five overperformers and underperformers from the Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk.

Overperformers - Universities whose blockchain rank exceeded their external aggregate rank

1. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology [+127.25]

2. Sun Yat-sen University [+123.75]

3. Arizona State University [+105.5]

4. Hong Kong Polytechnic University [+84]

5. City University of Hong Kong [+79.25]

Underperformers - Universities whose blockchain rank underperformed against their external aggregate rank

1. University of Cambridge [-17.75]

2. Oxford [-12.5]

3. Stanford [-8.75]

4. Peking [-3.25]

5. MIT [-2.75]

Read More: The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk