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The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of
university ranking College and university rankings order the best institutions in higher education based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while others assess institutions worldwide. Ranking ...
s by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with
Quacquarelli Symonds Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is a British company specialising in the analysis of higher education institutions around the world. The company was founded in 1990 by Nunzio Quacquarelli. History On 5 October 2017, QS Quacquarelli Symonds acquired Ho ...
(QS) to publish the joint ''
THE-QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...
'' from 2004 to 2009 before it turned to
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
for a new ranking system from 2010 to 2013. In 2014, the magazine then signed a deal with
Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...
to provide it with the data used to compile the rankings. The publication now comprises global, subject, and reputation rankings, alongside three regional league tables for Asia, Latin America, and BRICS & emerging economies, which are generated using different weightings. The THE Rankings is often considered one of the most widely observed university rankings together with the '' Academic Ranking of World Universities'', the ''
QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...
'', and others. It is praised for having a new, improved ranking methodology since 2010, but criticism and concerns have been voiced that this methodology underestimates
non-science A non-science is an area of study that is not scientific, especially one that is not a natural science or a social science that is an object of scientific inquiry. In this model, history, art, and religion are all examples of non-sciences. Cl ...
and non-English instructing institutions and relies on a subjective reputation survey.


History

The creation of the original ''
Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings The term Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings refers to rankings published jointly between 2004 and 2009 by ''Times Higher Education'' and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). After QS and ''Times Higher Education'' had ended their collabora ...
'' was credited in Ben Wildavsky's book, ''The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World'', to then-editor of ''Times Higher Education'', John O'Leary. ''Times Higher Education'' chose to partner with educational and careers advice company QS to supply the data. After the 2009 rankings, ''Times Higher Education'' took the decision to break from QS and signed an agreement with Thomson Reuters to provide the data for its annual World University Rankings from 2010 onwards. The publication developed a new rankings methodology in consultation with its readers, its editorial board and Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters will collect and analyse the data used to produce the rankings on behalf of Times Higher Education. The first ranking was published in September 2010. Commenting on Times Higher Education's decision to split from QS, former editor Ann Mroz said: "universities deserve a rigorous, robust and transparent set of rankings – a serious tool for the sector, not just an annual curiosity." She went on to explain the reason behind the decision to continue to produce rankings without QS' involvement, saying that: "The responsibility weighs heavy on our shoulders...we feel we have a duty to improve how we compile them." Phil Baty, editor of the new Times Higher Education World University Rankings, admitted in Inside Higher Ed: "The rankings of the world's top universities that my magazine has been publishing for the past six years, and which have attracted enormous global attention, are not good enough. In fact, the surveys of reputation, which made up 40 percent of scores and which Times Higher Education until recently defended, had serious weaknesses. And it's clear that our research measures favored the sciences over the humanities." He went on to describe previous attempts at peer review as "embarrassing" in ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'': "The sample was simply too small, and the weighting too high, to be taken seriously." THE published its first rankings using its new methodology on 16 September 2010, a month earlier than previous years. In 2010, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, along with the QS World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, were described to be the three most influential international university rankings. ''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' in that year also described the Times Higher Education World University Rankings to be "arguably the most influential." In 2014 Times Higher Education announced a series of important changes to its flagship THE World University Rankings and its suite of global university performance analyses, following a strategic review by THE parent company TES Global.


Methodology


Criteria and weighing

The inaugural 2010-2011
methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...
contained 13 separate indicators grouped under five categories: Teaching (30 percent of final score), research (30 percent), citations (research impact) (worth 32.5 percent), international mix (5 percent), industry income (2.5 percent). The number of indicators is up from the Times-QS rankings published between 2004 and 2009, which used six indicators.World University Rankings subject tables: Robust, transparent and sophisticated
(16 September 2010). ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings''.
A draft of the inaugural methodology was released on 3 June 2010. The draft stated that 13 indicators would first be used and that this could rise to 16 in future rankings, and laid out the categories of indicators as "research indicators" (55 percent), "institutional indicators" (25 percent), "economic activity/innovation" (10 percent), and "international diversity" (10 percent). The names of the categories and the weighting of each was modified in the final methodology, released on 16 September 2010. The final methodology also included the weighting assigned to each of the 13 indicators, shown below: The ''Times Higher Education'' billed the methodology as "robust, transparent and sophisticated," stating that the final methodology was selected after considering 10 months of "detailed consultation with leading experts in global higher education," 250 pages of feedback from "50 senior figures across every continent" and 300 postings on its website. The overall ranking score was calculated by making Z-scores all datasets to standardize different data types on a common scale to better make comparisons among data. The reputational component of the rankings (34.5 percent of the overall score – 15 percent for teaching and 19.5 percent for research) came from an Academic Reputation Survey conducted by
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
in spring 2010. The survey gathered 13,388 responses among scholars "statistically representative of global higher education's geographical and subject mix." The magazine's category for "industry income – innovation" came from a sole indicator, institution's research income from industry scaled against the number of academic staff." The magazine stated that it used this data as "proxy for high-quality knowledge transfer" and planned to add more indicators for the category in future years. Data for
citation impact Citation impact is a measure of how many times an academic journal article or book or author is cited by other articles, books or authors. Citation counts are interpreted as measures of the impact or influence of academic work and have given ris ...
(measured as a normalized average citation per paper), comprising 32.5 percent of the overall score, came from 12,000
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
s indexed by Thomson Reuters' large Web of Science database over the five years from 2004 to 2008. The ''Times'' stated that articles published in 2009–2010 have not yet completely accumulated in the database. The normalization of the data differed from the previous rankings system and is intended to "reflect variations in citation volume between different subject areas," so that institutions with high levels of research activity in the
life science Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy t ...
s and other areas with high citation counts will not have an unfair advantage over institutions with high levels of research activity in the
social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
s, which tend to use fewer citations on average. The magazine announced on 5 September 2011 that its 2011–2012 World University Rankings would be published on 6 October 2011.Phil Baty,
World University Rankings launch date revealed
(5 September 2011). ''Times Higher Education''.
At the same time, the magazine revealed changes to the ranking formula that will be introduced with the new rankings. The methodology will continue to use 13 indicators across five broad categories and will keep its "fundamental foundations," but with some changes. Teaching and research will each remain 30 percent of the overall score, and industry income will remain at 2.5 percent. However, a new "international outlook – staff, students and research" will be introduced and will make up 7.5 percent of the final score. This category will include the proportion of international staff and students at each institution (included in the 2011–2012 ranking under the category of "international diversity"), but will also add the proportion of research papers published by each institution that are co-authored with at least one international partner. One 2011–2012 indicator, the institution's public research income, will be dropped. On 13 September 2011, the ''Times Higher Education'' announced that its 2011–2012 list will only rank the top 200 institutions. Phil Baty wrote that this was in the "interests of fairness," because "the lower down the tables you go, the more the data bunch up and the less meaningful the differentials between institutions become." However, Baty wrote that the rankings would include 200 institutions that fall immediately outside the official top 200 according to its data and methodology, but this "best of the rest" list from 201 to 400 would be unranked and listed alphabetically. Baty wrote that the magazine intentionally only ranks around 1 percent of the world's universities in a recognition that "not every university should aspire to be one of the global research elite." However, the 2015/16 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks 800 universities, while Phil Baty announced that the 2016/17 edition, to be released on 21 September 2016, will rank "980 universities from 79 countries". The methodology of the rankings was changed during the 2011-12 rankings process, with details of the changed methodology here. Phil Baty, the rankings editor, has said that the THE World University Rankings are the only global university rankings to examine a university's teaching environment, as others focus purely on research. Baty has also written that the THE World University Rankings are the only rankings to put arts and humanities and social sciences research on an equal footing to the sciences. However, this claim is no longer true. In 2015, QS introduced faculty area normalization to their QS World University Rankings, ensuring that citations data was weighted in a way that prevented universities specializing in the Life Sciences and Engineering from receiving undue advantage. In November 2014, the magazine announced further reforms to the methodology after a review by parent company TES Global. The major change being all institutional data collection would be bought in house severing the connection with
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
. In addition, research publication data would now be sourced from
Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...
's
Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
database.


Reception

The reception to the methodology was varied. Ross Williams of the
Melbourne Institute The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (often simply referred to as "The Melbourne Institute") is an Australian economic research institute based in Melbourne, Victoria. The institute is a department of the Faculty of Bu ...
, commenting on the 2010–2011 draft, stated that the proposed methodology would favour more focused "science-based institutions with relatively few undergraduates" at the expense of institutions with more comprehensive programmes and undergraduates, but also stated that the indicators were "academically robust" overall and that the use of scaled measures would reward productivity rather than overall influence.Andrew Trounson,
Science bias will affect local rankings
(9 June 2010). ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
''.
Steve Smith Stephen, Steve, Stevie, or Steven Smith may refer to: Academics * Steve Smith (political scientist) (born 1952), British international relations theorist and senior university manager * Stephen Smith (journalist) (born 1956), American journalist, ...
, president of
Universities UK Universities UK (UUK) is an advocacy organisation for universities in the United Kingdom. It began life in the early 20th century through informal meetings of vice-chancellors of a number of universities and principals of university colleges and ...
, praised the new methodology as being "less heavily weighted towards subjective assessments of reputation and uses more robust citation measures," which "bolsters confidence in the evaluation method."
David Willetts David Linsay Willetts, Baron Willetts, (born 9 March 1956) is a British politician and life peer. From 1992 to 2015, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the constituency of Havant in Hampshire. He served as Minister of State for ...
, British Minister of State for Universities and Science praised the rankings, noting that "reputation counts for less this time, and the weight accorded to quality in teaching and learning is greater."Global path for the best of British
" (16 September 2010). ''Times Higher Education'' World University Rankings.
In 2014, David Willetts became chair of the TES Global Advisory Board, responsible for providing strategic advice to Times Higher Education.


Criticism

Times Higher Education places a high importance on citations to generate rankings. Citations as a metric for effective education is problematic in many ways, placing universities who do not use English as their primary language at a disadvantage. Because English has been adopted as the international language for most academic societies and journals, citations and publications in a language different from English are harder to come across. Thus, such a methodology is criticized for being inappropriate and not comprehensive enough. A second important disadvantage for universities of non-English tradition is that within the disciplines of social sciences and humanities the main tool for publications are books which are not or only rarely covered by digital citations records.
Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
has also been criticized for its strong bias towards institutions that taught 'hard science' and had high quality output of research in these fields, often to the disadvantage of institutions focused on other subjects like the social sciences and humanities. For instance in the former
THE-QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...
, the London School of Economics (LSE) was ranked 11th in the world in 2004 and 2005, but dropped to 66th and 67th in the 2008 and 2009 edition. In January 2010, THE concluded the method employed by
Quacquarelli Symonds Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is a British company specialising in the analysis of higher education institutions around the world. The company was founded in 1990 by Nunzio Quacquarelli. History On 5 October 2017, QS Quacquarelli Symonds acquired Ho ...
, who conducted the survey on their behalf, was flawed in such a way that bias was introduced against certain institutions, including LSE. A representative of
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
, THE's new partner, commented on the controversy: "''LSE stood at only 67th in the last Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings – some mistake surely? Yes, and quite a big one''." Nonetheless, after the change of data provider to Thomson Reuters the following year, LSE fell to 86th place, with the ranking described by a representative of Thomson Reuters as 'a fair reflection of their status as a world class university'.
LSE LSE may refer to: Computing * LSE (programming language), a computer programming language * LSE, Latent sector error, a media assessment measure related to the hard disk drive storage technology * Language-Sensitive Editor, a text editor used ...
despite being ranked continuously near the top in its national rankings, has been placed below other British universities in the Times Higher Education World Rankings in recent years, other institutions such as Sciences Po have suffered due to the inherent methodology bias still used.
Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...
's ranking in 2015 and 2016 was lowered by a basic mistake in data it had submitted; education administrator Bahram Bekhradnia said the fact this went unnoticed evinced a "very limited checking of data" "on the part of those who carry out such rankings". Bekhradnia also opined "while Trinity College was a respected university which could be relied upon to provide honest data, unfortunately that was not the case with all universities worldwide." In general it is not clear who the rankings are made for. Many students, especially the undergraduate students, are not interested in the scientific work of a facility of higher education. Also the price of the education has no effects on the ranking. That means that private universities on the North American continent are compared to the European universities. Many European countries like France, Sweden or Germany for example have a long tradition on offering free education within facilities of higher education. In 2021, the
University of Tsukuba is a public research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. It is a top 10 Designated National University, and was ranked Type A by the Japanese government as part of the Top Global University Project. The university has 28 colle ...
in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, was alleged to have submitted falsified data on the number of international students enrolled at the university to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The discovery resulted in an investigation by THE and the provision of guidance to the university on the submission of data, however, it also led to the criticism amongst faculty members of the ease with which THE's ranking system could be abused. The matter was discussed in Japan's National Diet on April 21, 2021. Seven Indian Institutes of Technology (Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati, Madras, Roorkee and Kharagpur) have boycotted THE rankings from 2020. These IITs have not participated in the rankings citing concerns over transparency.


World rankings


Young universities

Additionally, ''Times Higher Education '' provides a ''THE Universities Under 50'' list (formerly only ''150 Under 50 Universities'') with different weightings of indicators to accredit the growth of higher education institutions that are under 50 years old. In particular, the ranking attaches less weight to reputation indicators: for instance, the
University of Canberra The University of Canberra (UC) is a public research university with its main campus located in Bruce, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. The campus is within walking distance of Westfield Belconnen, and from Canberra's Civic Centre. U ...
, established in 1990, is placed at the 17th position, while the
Paris Sciences et Lettres University Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL University or simply PSL) is a public research university based in Paris, France. It was established in 2010 and formally created as a university in 2019. It is a collegiate university with 11 constituen ...
(2010) is ranked 1st in 2022.


Subject

Various academic disciplines are sorted into six categories in ''THEs subject rankings: "
Art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
s &
Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
"; " Clinical, Pre-clinical & Health"; "
Engineering & Technology ''Engineering & Technology'' (''E&T'') is a science, engineering and technology magazine published by IET Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a registered charity in the United Kingdom. Th ...
"; " Life Sciences"; "
Physical Sciences Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Phy ...
"; and "
Social Sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
".


World Reputation Rankings

''THE'' ''World Reputation Rankings'' serve as a subsidiary of the overall league tables and rank universities independently in accordance with their scores in prestige. Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed said of the new rankings: "...Most outfits that do rankings get criticised for the relative weight given to reputation as opposed to objective measures. While Times Higher Education does overall rankings that combine various factors, it is today releasing rankings that can't be criticised for being unclear about the impact of reputation – as they are strictly of reputation."


Regional rankings


Asia

From 2013 to 2015, the outcomes of the ''Times Higher Education'' ''Asia University Rankings'' were the same as the Asian universities' position on its World University Rankings. In 2016, the Asia University Rankings was revamped and it "use the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings, but have been recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia's institutions."


Emerging Economies

The ''Times Higher Education'' ''Emerging Economies Rankings'' (Formerly known as BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings) only includes universities in countries classified as "emerging economies" by
FTSE Group FTSE International Limited trading as FTSE Russell ( "Footsie") is a British provider of stock market indices and associated data services, wholly owned by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and operating from premises in Canary Wharf. It operat ...
, including the "
BRICS BRICS is an acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as "BRIC" (or "the BRICs") in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the ter ...
" nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
institutions are not included in this ranking.


Notes


References


External links


''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' websiteTimes Higher Education - World University Rankings 2016Times Higher Education - BRICS and Emerging Economies University Rankings 2016Times Higher Education - University Rankings by Subject 2016
– ''
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
''
University rankings: UK 'a stand-out performer'
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...

Interactive maps comparing the Times Higher Education, Academic Ranking of World Universities and QS World University Rankings
{{University ranking systems University and college rankings 2010 introductions