Furthermore, the four leading Parisian universities in terms of publications have less graduate students than Boston University, Harvard, UCL or King’s despite Paris concentrating propor
A FIRST GLANCE: THE SIMILARITIES
As explained above, the decision to compare Paris with London and Boston was motivated by the following considerations:
Paris, London, and Boston anchor metropolitan regions with comparable populations and levels of economic activity, suggesting that their HE&R systems should deliver similar services to support these dense urban centers.
Paris and Boston boast a broad spectrum of higher education and research institutions: Paris features Grandes Écoles, universities, and national research organisations, while Boston includes community and state colleges, vocational schools, and both public and private universities At first glance, London appears less diverse since the 1992 disappearance of the polytechnics left universities as virtually the only type of higher education and research institution Yet a closer look at how these institutions operate reveals significant differentiation within the British system, spanning from the research-intensive Russell Group to the post-1992 universities that grew out of the former polytechnics.
Universities aiming for world-class status typically benchmark themselves against leading institutions such as Harvard and University College London (UCL) The same benchmarking principle applies to whole higher education and research (HE&R) systems, which often model their standards and performance metrics on the UK and US educational frameworks.
In this part of the report we review briefly the demography, economic activity and HE&R sector of the three cities, to justify the relevance of comparing their HE&R systems
The table presents the main indicators for the three regions and highlights their similarities in population size and GDP per capita, while noting that the differences in R&D funding arise from the different perimeters used, as explained later.
Paris London Boston Geographical perimeter
City population 2 254 262 8,673,713 667,137 Paris, Greater London and Boston
Greater city population 12,005,077 9,787,426 4,732,161 Ile de France, Greater London
Built-up Area, Greater Boston Large metropolitan area population
12 405 426 14,031,830 8,041,303 Aire urbaine, London Metro Area,
Boston-Worcester-Providence Combined Area
54,069 52,047 60,902 Ile de France, Greater London,
Greater Boston Total R&D (M€) 18,664 4,429 18,774 Ile de France, Greater London,
Figure 2: Key city data (source: Eurostat, INSEE, UK Office for National Statistics, United States Office of
Management and Budget, National Science Foundation Latest year available)
The Brookings Institution curates the Global Metro Monitor (Edition 15), which uses some diverging perimeters and figures from the baseline we rely on, but remains a useful tool for comparing the three regions under study.
14 As this report will show, the differences between London and Boston are such that the notion of an Anglo- Saxon model makes little sense
15 www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/01/22-global-metro-monitor
Figure 3: Brookings’ global metro monitor for Paris, London and Boston 16
16 The full report is available here: www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2015/01/22-global-metro-monitor/bmpp_GMM_final.pdf?la=en
There is a close alignment in the basic demographic and economic data for Paris and London, including GDP per capita, employment, and the distribution of industrial activity, though Paris’ GDP growth currently lags behind London Boston shows only minor differences, being less affected by the 2008 crisis in terms of GDP growth A higher GDP per capita in Boston is partly due to Brookings’ area definition, which covers a smaller, more urbanized portion of the Boston CSA In economic activity, the three metropolises are very similar, with all three showing strength in Business/Finance, Local/Non-market, and Trade and Tourism, unlike many other cities surveyed.
The key takeaway is that the overall similarity indicates the need for education and research is comparable to the capacity to provide for those needs, so the demand for educational and research resources should be considered matched by the available capacity.
The following table gathers a selection of global city rankings to facilitate the comparison between the three cities
Global Cities Outlook (future potential) - A.T Kearney’s 19 3 2
2025 City Competitiveness rankings table - The Economist 7 2 19
Total Rank - Global Power City Index 2015 - Mori Foundation 3 1 23
Economy Score - Global Power City Index 2015 - Mori Foundation 218 324 191 Research and development Score - Global Power City Index 2015 - Mori
London and Paris remain consistently regarded as top global cities, with London typically ranking ahead of Paris in most assessments; Boston, despite its smaller size, is notably well placed, with its metropolitan area ranking around 92nd in population globally compared to London at 24th and Paris at 16th, especially when considering future growth and innovation potential.
According to the Mori Memorial Foundation’s Global Power City Index, a meticulously curated global city analysis, London remains the leading global economic hub, with Paris in second place and Boston a close third.
Particularly interesting in the table is the R&D score attributed by the Mori foundation which are almost identical This compounded score takes into account the following criteria:
Drawing on the Global Cities Index by A.T Kearney (2015), The Economist’s Hot Spots 2025, and the Mori Memorial Foundation’s Global Power City Index (GPCI), this discussion explains how leading cities build competitive advantage through diversified economies, strong innovation ecosystems, and essential infrastructure The Kearney index emphasizes economic strength and talent, The Economist’s report identifies cities with high growth potential driven by connectivity and investment, and Mori’s GPCI evaluates overall city power across economy, governance, people, knowledge, and livability Together, these sources show why certain cities attract capital, talent, and opportunities, and how policy choices in education, transportation, and urban development shape rankings and long-term competitiveness.
- academic performance in mathematics and science;
- readiness for accepting foreign researchers;
- number of registered industrial property rights;
- number of winners of highly-reputed prizes;
The following sections provide further information and statistics on the HE&R sector of the three metropolitan areas
Paris, London and Boston have similar number of students although in this case the leadership of Paris in quantitative terms is clear
Paris hosts the largest number of tertiary students, and also concentrates the most students in its country
Paris has the highest concentration of graduate students among major cities, with 37% of its student population at the graduate level, compared with 32% in London and 29% in Boston.
Another key indicator to consider is R&D expenditure The following table summarizes the available data for the Paris, London and Boston areas 19
18 See http://www.mori-m-foundation.or.jp/pdf/GPCI2015_en.pdf, p 8
19 It should be noted that these figures present where (in which type of institution) the expenditure takes place, not which is the source of funding
As a % of tertiary students in the country 19.82% 15.88% 1.85%
Proportion of undergraduate of students 63.03% 68.75% 70.67%
Proportion of graduate of students 36.97% 32.20% 29.33%
Figure 5: Overview of key Higher Education Numbers (based on raw data by the Ministère de l’Education, INSEE, HEFCE,
Carnegie Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics Latest data available)
The absolute data in these tables is difficult to compare because the numbers correspond to different areas:
In Paris, a substantial portion of R&D activity is conducted on science and business campuses located outside the city proper, within the Île-de-France region For Boston, the reference area is the state of Massachusetts, which includes zones beyond downtown Boston but excludes neighboring parts of New Hampshire and Rhode Island that belong to the broader metropolitan area London’s figure is comparatively low because it is computed using the most restrictive perimeter—Greater London—which is strictly urban and covers just over half of its metropolitan population; accordingly we also include the neighboring regions of South East England (6,220M€) and East England (7,260M€) The combined R&D expenditure for these three regions amounts to 17,908M€, roughly on par with Paris and Boston Nevertheless, these regions host world-class science and technology ecosystems, including Cambridge and Oxford, which are often treated as separate entities.
In Paris, government-sector R&D activity, defined per the OECD Frascati Manual to include all national research organisations, is very significant and nearly matches university R&D expenditure In London, by contrast, the bulk of academic-sector spending occurs at universities, so government activity is comparatively smaller For Boston, detailed data are not available, but €2,639 million remain unaccounted for after subtracting academic and private-sector expenditures, indicating a notable government role Overall, the government sector’s contribution appears substantial, though a precise assessment would require further investigation.
In overall terms, the three regions are therefore comparable, and the potential of Paris public research institutions does not seem hindered by the overall R&D landscape
20 As we will see later in this report the leading universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford have recently started highlighted the “golden triangle” as a leading HE&R hub
We adopt the OECD’s sector definition, encompassing all activities carried out by national organizations such as CNRS, CEA, INRIA, and INSERM This approach aligns with the Frascati Manual 2002, which outlines the proposed standard practices for surveys on research and development.
Experimental development, www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/9202081e.pdf? expires68574722
&id=id&accname=guest&checksumYFDF3FCCA08BFB82FA80A7A64D55CAB
(Ile de France) Paris Greater London
London + East/South East England
Private non-profit (M€) 286 174 504 no data
Figure 6: R&D Expenditure Source: Eurostat 2013, NSF 2012&2014
SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION, RANKINGS AND RECOGNITION
This initial analysis of the data highlights notable similarities in higher education and research (HE&R) performance among Boston, London, and Paris It suggests that Paris’s absence of a top-20 university is unlikely to reflect the city’s overall potential or its level of tertiary enrollment We will therefore examine in more detail how scientific production, impact, and recognition are distributed across the three cities.
To assess the scientific production of the three metropolitan areas considered in this report for 2010–2016, we queried the Web of Science (WoS) bibliometric databases Since there is no direct way to query for this, we propose two indirect methods: (1) assemble a list of HE&R institutions for the area and search for their publications using the WoS InCites interface; (2) query by address line to capture all relevant municipalities Neither method is fully satisfactory: the first likely underestimates production by missing publications from national research organizations such as CEA, while the second may overestimate by including publications from all organizations, not only those primarily involved in HE&R Additional issues include incorrect affiliations (see appendix F) and the potential for double counting of publications.
Figure 7: Method 1: scientific production of academic institutions (source InCites)
There is a clear disparity between Paris and London and Boston Looking at the first table, which uses institutions as the unit of analysis, Paris shows lower productivity distributed across a larger number of institutions (22) The citation impact, normalized by field, is also lower for Paris than for London and especially Boston (23).
This analysis counts only published institutions, so the total number of HE&R institutions is much higher, particularly in Boston; the report will revisit the issue of research concentration in Part 3.
The reasons for this are complex and require detailed study They likely stem from differences in the science map of the three cities—where citation patterns favor Health Sciences and are more developed in Boston and London—along with built‑in biases in the Web of Science (WoS) and the Matthew effect.
Citation Impact (normalised by field) Institutions
Figure 8: Method 2: scientific production by address (source WoS)
An in-depth look at production by scientific field reveals a striking regional pattern Paris excels in formal sciences, notably mathematics and physics, but its output in health sciences and social sciences is comparatively weaker.
To refine the overall picture, we analyzed field-by-field variations in publication practices by constructing a Map of Science, where every dot denotes a Web of Science (WoS) category The dot’s size reflects the publication count, making it possible to identify areas of relative strength across fields.
- disciplinary categories are represented by a color code (see legend);
- the size of dots is proportional to the number of publications in each field;
- the spatial distribution reflects the frequency of citations between categories (closer dots mean denser networks)
Representation applies a threshold principle: a field is represented on the graph only if its presence meets a predefined threshold; fields that are not represented or fall below the threshold are omitted from the visualization The method can combine data to favour English-language publications from Anglo-Saxon Journals from highly recognised institutions, shaping the observed patterns in the graph Defining the degree of bias and possible countermeasures is a question for another report.
Spatial distribution is produced automatically by an algorithm developed by Rafols, Porter, and Leydesdorff, as described in their 2010 paper Science Overlay Maps: A New Tool for Research Policy and Library Management (Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 61(9)) The interactive version presented here was created through a collaboration between SIRIS Lab and I Rafols (Ingenio, Polytechnic Institute of Valencia).
Figure 9: Production by scientific areas Source: WoS
These interactive maps let you explore each city's distinctive research profile across 251 WoS categories, and they’re accessible on the SIRISLab site at http://sirislab.com/lab/cnrs/map-science/#/ The maps showcase the different research profiles for every city, while a table regroups the top 20 categories for each city.
Following the maps, two tables are presented: the first lists the top 20 Web of Science (WoS) categories for each city, including the publication counts and the percentage of total publications that each category represents; the second table groups these categories into the ten broad disciplinary fields identified by the Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques (OST).
Figure 10: Map of Science: Paris (source: WoS, visualisation by SIRISLab)
Figure 11: Map of Science: London (source: WoS, visualisation by SIRISLab)
Figure 12: Map of Science: Boston (source: WoS, visualisation by SIRISLab)
Web of Science Categories Paris London Boston records % of total records % of total records % of total
RADIOLOGY NUCLEAR MEDICINE MEDICAL IMAGING 8235 2,566
Figure 13: Top 20 WoS categories in number of publications per city (source: WoS)
Boston and London lead in health sciences and medicine, producing a markedly higher publication output than Paris In bibliometric terms, this gap grants Boston and London a disproportionate share of medical research impact compared with Paris.
On the other hand, Parisian scientific production is distinguished by its focus on formal sciences, a field where the number of recorded publications is over double that of London
Global focus differences are evident on a field-by-field basis: the top 10 fields by scientific production in London and in Boston each appear within the other city’s top 20 fields, yet four of these overlapping fields—General Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, Public Environmental Occupational Health, and Cardiac Cardiovascular Diseases—do not rank among Paris’s top 20 fields.
Further interpretations would require comparing Web of Science (WoS) results with those from Scopus, examining the evolution of patterns over time, and revisiting data curation quality For policy-making, two actionable study directions stand out: (1) modelling the emergence of world-class clusters—such as environmental studies in Paris—and (2) assessing the impact of consolidated clusters on big-topic research like climate change within that city, using both funded research projects and co-publication networks as evidence.
An illustrative outcome is Nature’s rise as the top venue for experimental physics, driven by the larger, more citation-dense life sciences audience Werner explains that life scientists are more numerous and cite more than physicists, so the impact factors of Science and Nature—journals spanning all sciences—outpace those of any non‑review physics journal (Werner 2015, The focus on bibliometrics makes papers less useful, Nature 517).
Figure 14: Respective weight of publications in the OST’s large disciplinary fields categories (source: WoS,
Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques)
CHIMIE MATHEMATIQUES NON ATTRIBUE PHYSIQUE RECHERCHE MEDICALE
COMPARING THE STRUCTURATION OF THE INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPES
In part 2, we clustered institutions together in function of their performance according to different parameters: rankings, student numbers, staff numbers, bibliometric data, etc
Applying this approach in Boston, we identified clear clusters of institutions that perform similarly across all parameters, ranging from world-class research universities such as Harvard and MIT to teaching-focused colleges In London, the results show a comparable pattern, with the top tier led by Imperial College London and University College London, although this elite group does not achieve the same level of performance as in Boston.
In Paris, a clear dichotomy emerges: depending on the parameters analyzed, the top performers are either a group of Grandes écoles or a group of four universities, with their distance from Boston's world-class universities varying by parameter When ComUEs are included in the comparison, they consistently perform worse than either group.
To understand why this is happening, we analyze in more detail the institutional structure of each city's higher education system, starting with legal distinctions, then current classification frameworks, and finally comparing institutions by their two core missions: teaching and research It would be useful to delve deeper into how these missions are divided across institutions, but the absence of suitable tools and the overall complexity of data collection make such detail impractical at this time.
The system of HE&R in Massachusetts, like in most other American states, can be divided into three categories: public, private not-for-profit and private for-profit 40
The Public System 41 is itself divided into 3 categories:
The University of Massachusetts is a public university system in Massachusetts, comparable to the University of California system It comprises campuses including two universities in the Boston area: the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the University of Massachusetts Boston.
- Nine State Universities, including in Boston area: Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts College of Arts and Design and Salem State University
There are 15 community colleges in the region, including several in the Boston area, such as Berkshire Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, Great Bay Community College, Massachusetts Bay Community College, Massasoit Community College, Middlesex Community College-Bedford, and Northern Essex Community College.
Currently, there is no comparative tool available The classification tool U-rank (http://www.u-map.org/ – not to be confused with U-Multirank) could offer a useful starting point, but it lists only 117 institutions, and just one, UVSQ, is situated in Boston, London or Paris.
40 We will leave the for-profit sector aside One example, included in the graph below is University of Phoenix- Massachusetts
As noted earlier, when possible our analysis includes institutions located in Greater Boston and excludes those outside Massachusetts; this scope also covers public institutions from neighboring New Hampshire, such as the University of New Hampshire–Main Campus.
To qualify as a four-year university or senior college, institutions must offer graduate programs in four or more distinct professional fields of study and clearly identify graduate studies as a distinct element within their organizational structure They must also provide the additional faculty, facilities, and resources necessary to support sound, high-quality graduate programs.
Massachusetts Board of Higher Education: http://www.mass.edu/forinstitutions/academic/documents/610C
Each category has a clear mission 42 :
Community colleges are dedicated to excellence in teaching and learning They deliver academic preparation for students who plan to transfer to four-year institutions and offer career training for entering high-demand occupational fields They also provide developmental coursework to strengthen foundational skills and a broad array of lifelong learning opportunities for ongoing personal and professional growth.
State universities are committed to excellence in instruction and to delivering responsive, innovative, high-quality educational programs They aim to develop each student’s critical thinking, quantitative, technological, oral, and written communication skills, along with a practical appreciation of the arts, sciences, and humanities, all of which contribute to good citizenship and an enhanced quality of life.
The University of Massachusetts is committed to providing an affordable, high-quality education and to pursuing research and public service programs that advance knowledge and improve the lives of people throughout the Commonwealth.
Unlike in other American states like California or Wisconsin, the main public universities in Massachusetts are not considered amongst the best in the world
Times Higher Education (THE) currently ranks the University of Massachusetts at 141st, noting that it had been in the top 100 until 2015 In contrast, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places both the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Massachusetts Medical School within the world’s top 150.
Finally, it is interesting to note that MIT is a land-grant university and thus receives federal funding despite being private
The private not-for-profit sector comprises a broad, diverse range of institutions, including leading universities such as Harvard and MIT, specialized research institutes, liberal arts colleges, and specialized schools in fields such as business.
Explore the Massachusetts education system overview at http://www.mass.edu/system/aboutsystem.asp#state and review the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education’s 2010 Performance Measurement Report at http://www.mass.edu/bhe/lib/documents/2010PerformanceMeasurementReport.pdf for detailed performance data.
According to THE rankings, only ENS and École Polytechnique outrank the University of Massachusetts, placing UMass behind those European institutions; however, THE ranks the University of Massachusetts as a whole while ranking the University of Wisconsin and the University of California at the campus level, a discrepancy that seems inconsistent.