<p>Sorry for mistake on the timing of Andrew Fire’s recruitment. Here is the website for Stanford Nobel lists: [Faculty:</a> Stanford University Facts](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/faculty.html]Faculty:”>http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/faculty.html). If you remove those faculties who retired (Professor Emeritus, including Richard Taylor recently), move to somewhere else (Steven Chu, Joseph Stiglits, Michael Spence. The last two got their Nobel prize after leaving Stanford, and strictly speaking, should be only counted as Alumnus Nobel, just as Andrew Fire to Carnegie Institute of Washington and Johns Hopkins), and take away the adjunct faculties from other institutes (Hoover fellows), you will have 4 Nobels to work with if you attend Stanford right now. </p>
<p>If you want to include NAS, NAE and IOM member institute into the fold, many institutes do not have medical schools or Engineer schools, counting NAE and IOM may create unfair comparison. Furthermore, these agencies don’t have retirement system. Many of those members are not productive anymore. So, it has little relevance to the current academic strength of the institutes. </p>
<p>Most of the scientists evaluate the strength of a University through 2 criteria: publications (quantity and quality) and fundings. In this regard, Harvard is unmatched in the number of publications and highly cited papers ([Performance</a> Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities](<a href=“http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2008/TOP/100]Performance”>http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2008/TOP/100)). Harvard (plus all its affiliated hospitals and schools) is also on top of NIH fundings (<a href=“http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2008/SchoolOfMedicine2008.xls[/url]”>http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2008/SchoolOfMedicine2008.xls</a>, [Award</a> Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions](<a href=“http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/Top50Inst2/default.asp]Award”>Award Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions)). Don’t get fooled by the table that Johns Hopkins is the first in NIH funding. Harvard has a peculiar accounting system that each school and hospital has a separate account in NIH budget. Harvard medical school system is way ahead of everybody.</p>
<pre><code> Publication Rank
</code></pre>
<p>Institute Agriculture Clin. med. Engineer Life sci. Nat. sci. Soc. sci.
Harvard 11 1 13 1 5 1
Stanford 29 13 4 4 7 8
UCB 4 N/A 1 20 1 9</p>
<p>It appears that UCB is in better position to catch Harvard. The score gaps between Stanford and Harvard are too big for Stanford to catch up, and all these data are hard and objective information. The reality is harsh.</p>
<p>By the way, I found out that Samual C.C. Ting is currently on the payroll of MIT. He is active. William Sharpe and Michael Spence had retired from Stanford.</p>