Times Higher Education World
University Rankings is an
annual publication of university rankings by Times Higher
Education (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) to publish the joint THE–QS
World University Rankings from 2004 to 2009 before it turned to Thomson Reuters for a new ranking system. The publication
now comprises the world's overall, subject, and reputation rankings, alongside
three regional league tables, Asia, Latin America, and BRICS & Emerging Economies which are generated by consistent
methodology. It is considered as one of the most widely observed university
measures together with Academic
Ranking of World Universities and QS World
University Rankings. It is praised for having a new improved
methodology but undermining non-English-instructing institutions and being
commercialized are the major criticisms.
History
The creation of the original Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 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 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.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, along with
the QS World University Rankings and the Academic
Ranking of World Universities are described to be the three most
influential international university rankings. The Globe and Mail in 2010 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 weighting
The inaugural 2010-2011 methodology 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.
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
signed to each of the 13 indicators, shown below:
Overall
indicator
|
Individual
indicator
|
Percentage
weighting
|
Industry
Income – innovation
|
·
Research income from
industry (per academic staff)
|
·
2.5%
|
International
diversity
|
·
Ratio of international
to domestic staff
·
Ratio of international
to domestic students
|
·
3%
·
2%
|
Teaching – the
learning environment
|
·
Reputational survey
(teaching)
·
PhDs awards per academic
·
Undergrad. admitted per
academic
·
Income per academic
·
PhDs/undergraduate
degrees awarded
|
·
15%
·
6%
·
4.5%
·
2.25%
·
2.25%
|
Research –
volume, income and reputation
|
·
Reputational survey
(research)
·
Research income (scaled)
·
Papers per research and
academic staff
·
Public research income/
total research income
|
·
19.5%
·
5.25%
·
4.5%
·
0.75%
|
Citations –
research influence
|
·
Citation impact
(normalised average citation per paper)
|
·
32.5%
|
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 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 (measured as a normalized average citation
per paper), comprising 32.5 percent of the overall score, came from 12,000 academic journals 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 sciences and other areas with high citation counts
will not have an unfair advantage over institutions with high levels of
research activity in the social sciences, 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.[18] 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. In addition research
publication data would now be sourced from Elsevier's Scopus database.
Reception
The reception to the methodology was varied.
Ross Williams of the Melbourne Institute,
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. Steve Smith,
president of Universities UK, 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, 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. In
2014, David Willetts became chair of the TES Global Advisory Board, responsible
for providing strategic advice to Times Higher Education.
Criticism[edit]
Times Higher Education gives much importance to citations on
their ranking. This has been criticised for undermining universities that do
not use English as their primary language. Citations and publications in a language
different from English are harder to come across. Thus, such a methodology is
condemned for being inappropriate and not comprehensive enough.[ A
second important disadvantage for universities of non Anglo-Saxon 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 citations
records.
Times Higher
Education has
also been criticised 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 more focused on other subjects like the social
sciences and humanities. For instance in the former THE-QS
World University Rankings, LSE was
ranked 11th in the world in 2004 and 2005, but dropped to 66th and 67th in the
2008 and 2009 edition.[32] In January 2010, THE concluded that the
method employed by Quacquarelli Symonds,
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, 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 even further 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
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'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.
Global rankings
Overall
Institution
|
|||||||
6
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
|
4
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
4
|
3
|
3
|
|
6
|
6
|
7
|
7
|
5
|
4
|
4
|
|
3
|
7
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
5
|
5
|
|
1
|
2
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
6
|
6
|
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
|
9
|
8
|
8
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
8
|
|
15
|
15
|
12
|
14
|
13
|
9
|
9
|
|
8
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
8
|
13
|
10
|
|
12
|
9
|
10
|
9
|
11
|
10
|
10
|
|
Young Universities
In addition, THE also provides 150 Under 50 Universities with different weightings of indicators to
accredit the growth of institutions that are under 50 years old. In particular, the ranking attaches less
weight to reputation indicators. For instance, University of
Canberra Australia established in Year 1990 at the rank 50 of
150 Under 50 Universities.
Subject
Various academic disciplines are sorted into six categories in THE's subject rankings: "Arts & Humanities"; "Clinical, Pre-clinical
& Health"; "Engineering & Technology"; "Life Sciences"; "Physical Sciences"; and "Social Sciences".[44]
Reputation
Regions with universities included in the reputation league
tables.
THE's 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.
Times Higher
Education World Reputation Rankings—Top 50[
|
||||||
Institution
|
||||||
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
4
|
2
|
|
5
|
4
|
6
|
3
|
5
|
3
|
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
4
|
2
|
4
|
|
6
|
6
|
4
|
5
|
3
|
5
|
|
4
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
|
9
|
10
|
10
|
8
|
8
|
8
|
|
23
|
15
|
13
|
12
|
10
|
9
|
|
10
|
11
|
11
|
9
|
9
|
10
|
|
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.
Times Higher
Education Asia University Rankings —
Top 10
|
||||
Institution
|
||||
2
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
|
11
|
11
|
10
|
2
|
|
4
|
5
|
4
|
2
|
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
4
|
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
5
|
|
9
|
9
|
7
|
6
|
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
|
5
|
10
|
11
|
8
|
|
8
|
4
|
6
|
9
|
|
10
|
8
|
8
|
10
|
|
BRICS and emerging economies
The Times
Higher Education BRICS
& Emerging Economies Rankings only includes universities in countries
classified as "emerging economies" by FTSE Group, including the "BRICS"
nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Hong Kong institutions are not included in this
ranking.
Times Higher
Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings — Top 10
|
|||
Institution
|
2014
|
2015
|
2016
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
|
10
|
5
|
3
|
|
3
|
4
|
4
|
|
4
|
6
|
5
|
|
15
|
14
|
6
|
|
6
|
11
|
7
|
|
22
|
21
|
8
|
|
11
|
10
|
9
|
|
27
|
16
|
10
|
|
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