Skip to Main Content

Bibliometrics & Responsible Research Evaluation: University Rankings

Learn how to track citations to your research and the limitations of using bibliometric indicators

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

The THE World University Rankings provide overall world top 200 rankings, banded lists of a further 200 "best of the rest" universities, top 50 institutions by subject (engineering & technology, arts & humanities, clinical, pre-clinical & health, life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences), rankings by region.


Methodology uses 13 performance indicators, grouped into the following 5 areas:

  • 29.5% Teaching — the learning environment (reputational survey - teaching, PHD awards per academic, undergraduates admitted per academic, income per academic, PHD awards/bachelor awards)
  • 29% Research Environment — volume, income and reputation (papers per academic  and research student, reputational survey - research, scaled research income)
  • 30% Research Quality (15% citation impact) — research influence (normalised average citations per paper)
  • 4% Industry — innovation (research income from industry per academic)
  • 7.5% International Outlook — ratio of international to domestic staff, ratio of international to domestic students, proportion of international co-authored research papers

A detailed breakdown of the methodology is available at the link below.

CWTS Leiden Ranking

The Leiden Ranking is based on Web of Science data. This includes the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Only publications of the Web of Science document types article and review are taken into account. The period covers 4 years, two years prior to the date of the ranking. For example for the 2024 rankings, the publications come from 2019 - 2022. Open access data are taken from OpenAlex. As of 2024, the rankings covered 1500 universities world wide.

 

U-Multirank

Compares the performances of universities across 5 dimensions:

  • teaching and learning
  • research 
  • knowledge transfer 
  • international orientation
  • regional engagement

Bibliometric analysis is based on the Web of Science dataset and is provided by the CWTS (Centre for Science and Technology  Studies) at Leiden University.

QS Ranking

The QS World University Rankings currently ranks over 1,000 universities. The QS World University Rankings by Subject identifies the world's strongest universities in 48 individual subject areas. The QS Top 50 Under 50 highlights the world's top 50 universities established within the last 50 years.

Methodology used:

  • 30% Academic reputation 
  • 20% Citations per faculty from Scopus
  • 15% Employer reputation
  • 5% Employment outcomes
  • 10% Faculty/Student ratio
  • 5% International Faculty ration
  • 5% International Research Network
  • 5% International Student Ratio
  • 5% Sustainability

More details on the methodology are available on the link below.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities first published in June 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and then updated on an annual basis.

Methodology used:

  • 10% Alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields medals
  • 20% Staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals
  • 20% number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate.
  • 20% number of articles published in the journals, Nature and Science
  • 20% Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded™ and Social Science Citation Index™ (Web of Science)
  • 10% per capita academic performance with respect to the size of an institution

Creative Commons license