T.M. Kayode

I attended a few Times Higher Education (THE) ranking meetings last week, where they discussed the performance of universities in Africa and the USA. These sessions were incredibly insightful, and I enjoyed every moment of them.

During the Q&A sessions, I noticed a recurring theme. Many universities seem more focused on climbing the rankings than on improving their internal policies and procedures. One question stood out: “What can our universities do to move up the rankings?” This question reveals a deep truth about human nature—whenever there’s a prize, competitiveness arises.

For younger universities looking to climb the rankings, my advice is to first look within. Develop your core competencies, institute policies, and create an environment where every member of your community can grow and thrive. Just like the Bible says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In the same way, rankings are made for universities, not the other way around.

That said, let’s talk about how this rankings work.

The World University Ranking was first developed by THE in 2004. In the latest rankings published in 2024, 1,906 universities across 108 countries and regions submitted their data. Here’s a breakdown of how the ranking works:

Criteria for Getting Ranked

1. Must teach undergraduate studies.
2. Must have a research output of at least 1,000 publications between 2018 and 2022 (with a minimum of 150 per year).
3. Universities can be excluded if 80% or more of their research output is in one of THE’s 11 subject areas.
4. Institutions must provide and sign off their data for use in the rankings.

Evaluation Areas

The methodology has evolved over time, currently at version 3.0, and evaluates universities based on five main areas:

1. Teaching (29.5%)
   • Teaching Reputation
   • Student-Staff Ratio
   • Doctorate-to-Bachelor Ratio
   • Doctorate-to-Staff Ratio
   • Institutional Income
2. Research Environment (29.0%)
   • Research Reputation
   • Research Income
   • Research Productivity
3. Research Quality (30.0%)
   • Citation Impact
   • Research Strength
   • Research Excellence
   • Research Influence
4. International Outlook (7.5%)
   • International Students
   • International Staff
   • International Co-authorship
5. Industry (4.0%)
   • Industry Income
   • Patents

Detailed Breakdown

• Teaching: The reputation component is evaluated from an Academic Reputation Survey involving 68,000 cited academics worldwide. Other indicators come from university-provided data.
• Research Environment: This includes reputation data from the same survey and measures productivity via Scopus publications.
• Research Quality: Evaluated using Elsevier’s SCOPUS, analyzing over 134 million citations to 16.5 million publications.
• International Outlook: Data on staff and students are university-provided, while collaboration data is sourced from Elsevier.
• Industry: Income data is provided by universities, and patent data is from multiple international patent offices.

All data points are normalized to account for institutional size, regional constraints, and other parameters to ensure fair rankings.

In conclusion, while rankings are important, they should not be the sole focus. Universities should aim to create environments that foster growth and excellence from within. Rankings will naturally follow when a university excels in its core mission.