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While rankings are not the sole indicator of an institution’s reputation and academic excellence, they help benchmark universities nationally, regionally, and globally. Many factors contribute to rankings, including research output and collaboration.
Explore these resources for a deeper look into how rankings work, and learn about analyzing and tracking research activities that are counted — so you can better support your rankings objectives.
Learn the basics about university rankings, their purpose and methodologies. Explore multiple perspectives from universities across the globe on how they respond, track and participate in rankings and the data behind them.
Ranking systems have their strengths, limitations, and specific focus — with evolving methodologies. Learn who the major ranking organizations are, how they rank universities and key things to consider.
Take a moment to listen to Qatar University's approach to rankings. Cesar Wazen, Director of International Affairs, explains the intricate requirements of rankings and how they may or may not align with the university's goals and aspirations.
Princeton University's President, Christopher L Eisgruber, advocates for universities to embrace alternative metrics and information sources beyond the conventional rankings.
Read an open access article by Marta Peris-Ortiz, Dayanis García-Hurtado, and Alberto Prado Román, delving into the intricacies of global university rankings, their indicators, and their impact on university management.
"We have always believed these rankings are not designed to say that one university is better than another. It is more about being able to look at the institution through a variety of lenses, whether it’s teaching, research, knowledge transfer or international visibility.
Universities are increasingly investing in an evidence-based approach to develop a clear understanding of their position and progress. They are increasingly using a basket of diverse metrics to understand their strengths, set goals, chart their progress, and make budgetary decisions. Rankings are just one of the tools they can use."
MEA
M’hamed El Aisati
VP Analytical and Data Services, Elsevier
Get notified when new resources about university rankings and research activities become available.
Learn how different rankings organizations' methodologies work and how you can view, investigate and monitor the data points that may be contributing to your institution's rankings.
Get a comprehensive overview of seven ranking reports, including the organizations' stated objectives for each report, an explanation of their methodology, and the data source they use. The information is sourced from publicly available data. Last updated in September 2023.
To calculate their rankings, THE collects data from multiple external sources including bibliometric data. Discover the significance of this data, its contribution to their methodology and the valuable insights it offers.
The QS rankings, which consist of the World University Rankings and Ranking by Subjects, use bibliometric data to calculate their results. This year, they made enhancements to their methodology, which includes three new metrics. Learn more about how bibliometric data influences QS rankings.
For their Impact Rankings, THE uses research-related metrics and metrics based on the university's own data and evidence supporting progress. Learn about their methodology and the insights Scopus and SciVal provide.
Recognizing the importance of evolving formulas and indicators over time, U.S. News & World Report has made significant methodological changes to the 2024 Best Colleges ranking, by modifying its weights of several other factors, and introducing a few new ones. This guide offers a concise overview of the national ranking and its new methodology.
Scopus and SciVal enable university staff to plan, progress and evaluate institutional research activities with bibliometric data and analytical tools that align with ranking organizations' methodologies.
U.S. News and World Report has chosen to leverage the quality and breadth of Elsevier's Scopus Data in its Best Colleges Rankings to accurately measure the research output of U.S. universities. The new methodology places greater emphasis on outcomes such as how often a school's students from all socioeconomic backgrounds earn degrees and graduate with manageable debt.
