times higher education ranking sustainability

These world-changing universities are making the most impact on society

The top universities making a difference according to The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings of 2022. Image:  REUTERS/Phil Noble

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Stay up to date:, davos agenda.

• Higher education institutions are facing a reckoning over their delivery of social and economic impact to their communities and to society.
• The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings show the most impactful universities from around the world from leading on providing decent work and economic growth to contributing to delivering affordable, clean energy.
• A record 1,524 institutions from 110 countries and regions participated across the rankings on 2022 representing a 23% increase on the previous year.

A great “reckoning” is coming to universities around the world.

Such was the contention of Harvard professor Fernando Reimers, a leading member of the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s Commission on the Futures of Education, this year. In an interview with Times Higher Education , he said: “In recent decades… the public and politicians are increasingly asking, ‘What good do universities do for society? Who do universities serve?’

“I think that is causing a reckoning within the higher education community perhaps of comparable significance to the reckoning that led to the last major transformation of the university after the Second World War” – an era of great expansion of university education and widening access.

The Commission called for “a new social contract for education.”

Have you read?

Is this what higher education will look like in 5 years, achieving our education goals can unlock all the sdgs, there is a great global 'levelling up' underway in universities.

But a massive new data analysis released today – covering more than 1,500 universities from 110 countries – clearly demonstrates that global higher education is ready to face this reckoning.

Delivering sustainable change

The 2022 edition of the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings , based on universities’ contributions to delivering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), show that universities worldwide are seizing the moment to double down on a long tradition of public service of delivering sustainable social and economic impact for their communities and society at large.

Based on a series of more than 100 metrics and over 200 measurements , covering universities’ teaching, research, outreach into the community and the stewardship of their own resources, the rankings show universities from all over the world delivering real impact across all 17 SDGs – whether that’s Western University in Canada leading efforts to help eradicate poverty (SDG 1) or the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa leading on work to provide decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) or Fudan University in China heading up the table of universities’ contribution to delivering affordable, clean energy (SDG 7).

Overall, 17 different universities from 14 countries top one of the 17 individual rankings for each SDG – a diverse global community ready to hold itself accountable for the delivery of the global goals, sharing data and benchmarking progress.

A record 1,524 institutions from 110 countries and regions have participated across the rankings this year, a 23% increase since last year, reflecting the growing importance of the SDGs within higher education institutions globally.

THE Impact rankings include tables for each individual SDG, as well as an overall ranking – drawn from universities’ performance in their best three individual SDG categories, combined with their performance in the compulsory category of SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

Australia’s Western Sydney University claims the top spot in the overall ranking, which includes 1,406 institutions, after topping the table for SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and coming second in SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).

Collaboration is key

Hailing his university’s success in the rankings, Western Sydney University vice chancellor Barney Glover called for universities worldwide to join forces to tackle the SDGs.

“If we are arrogant enough to believe that we can make a difference to the complex problems we’re facing without collaborating, without bringing the best together to think through, to analyze, to synthesize and to strategize, then I think we are going to let down generations to come,” he said.

And the rankings could certainly encourage more diverse, international university collaborations, as the top ten include eight different countries from across four continents, with only one representative from the United States, Arizona State University, in second place. Last year’s world number one, Manchester University, takes ninth place in an annual list that is inherently dynamic: the rankings are growing each year rapidly as many more universities seek to demonstrate their commitment to delivering the SDGs by joining the database; and they allow institutions to demonstrate rapid improvement year-on-year, by introducing clear new policies, for example, or by providing clearer and more open evidence of their progress.

Speaking at the ed-tech-focussed ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego in early April, Joy Johnson, president of Canada’s Simon Fraser University, said that taking part in the Impact rankings had allowed the university to “hold a mirror up to ourselves”.

“We’ve learned some interesting things… we have learned what we are doing really well, and we have surprised ourselves... More importantly, we’ve learned where the gaps are and where we need to continue to push ourselves.”

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Virginia Tech’s sustainability efforts earn global recognition

The university again ranked in the top 100 overall in the latest Times Higher Education Impact rankings and received top-100 marks in six specific metrics related to research on hunger, climate action, food waste, and more.

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Virginia Tech’s commitment to sustainability continues to receive international acclaim, as the university was again ranked among the top 100 universities globally in the Times Higher Education 2023 Impact Rankings released Thursday.

The Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings are the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). THE rankings use calibrated indicators to compare universities across four areas: research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching.

Virginia Tech received an overall score of 89 and an impact ranking of No. 92 out of nearly 1,600 universities. Last year, the university was ranked No. 98 out of 1,406 universities.

Of the United Nation’s 17 SDGs, Virginia Tech participated in 11 of those and registered top-100 marks globally in six. The university’s top mark came in the SDG of Zero Hunger, a category that considers a university’s research on hunger, its teaching of food sustainability, a commitment to tackling food waste, and a commitment to addressing hunger on campus and locally.

The university finished 17th globally out of 647 institutions ranked in this category.

The Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation played an important role in Virginia Tech’s success in this category. As an Extension and Outreach Center in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences , the center leads multi-institutional and community-based grant-funded projects focused on ecological, cultural, and societal elements of regenerative agriculture, local foodways, and regional food systems.

Examples of these projects include the Roanoke Foodshed Network that aims to explore and build capacity for a regional food system in the Roanoke area of Southwest Virginia; Soil Conservation, and Place that talks to farmers about conserving soil and water resources; 4 the Soil: A Conversation that consists of a podcast that focuses on soil health; Agroforestry in Virginia that trains growers and educators in establishing and maintaining agroforestry systems; and Stories of Community Food Work in Appalachia that shares narratives of people working for food systems change.

“We not only make an impact through our programming and projects, but we offer backbone support to a number of initiatives that emphasize a commitment to addressing food access and availability from a critical and systems perspective,” Kim Niewolny, director of the center, said. “Through our events and more, our center team and community are well positioned to continue to support the university in serving as a leader in addressing the UN’s SDGs as a result of high impact teaching, research, and outreach.” 

The SDG of Responsible Consumption and Production measures universities’ research on responsible consumption and their approach to the sustainable use of resources. The SDG of Sustainable Cities and Communities measures universities’ research on sustainability, their role as custodians of arts and heritage, and their internal approaches to sustainability.

Virginia Tech’s Office of Sustainability works daily to meet the university’s goals stated in its Climate Action Commitment , which seeks to move the campus toward becoming a more sustainable community. Much of their work contributed to these high SDG scores in the Impact rankings.

Some examples of the Office of Sustainability’s efforts in these SDG categories include offering individuals the opportunity to participate in a bike census each fall and soliciting green request for proposals from students to make the campus more sustainable — proposals that may receiving funding and be implemented within the following academic year.

Other examples include campus officials working with a zero-waste consultant – Reduction in Motion – to develop pathways for the university’s goal of becoming a zero-waste campus by 2030 and the Game Day Green Team , which helps improve recycling rates at athletics events. Also, a Climate Action, Sustainability, and Energy Committee pushes forward sustainability policies and priorities.

“One of the mottos we often use in sustainability is 'think globally and act locally,'” Nathan King, campus sustainability manager, said. “I believe that Virginia Tech has been able to put a special spotlight on its sustainability efforts through THE Impact rankings and our dedication to supporting the UN SDGs.  We are proud of the fact that we have a myriad of faculty and staff experts at the university working alongside our committed students to advance our Climate Action Commitment and our campus Sustainability Plan. We continually look forward to harnessing Virginia Tech’s spirit of innovation and service to better our local and global community.”

Other top marks for Virginia Tech came in the SDGs of Reduced Inequalities, Life on Land, and Climate Action. The SDG of Reduced Inequalities considers universities’ research on social inequalities, their policies on discrimination, and their commitment to recruiting staff and students from underrepresented groups. The SDG of Life on Land measures universities’ research on life on land and their education on and support for land ecosystems. The SDG of Climate Action factors universities’ research on climate change, their use of energy and their preparations for dealing with the consequences of climate change.

Virginia Tech was ranked No. 63 globally out of 901 universities in Reduced Inequalities, No. 73 globally out of 586 institutions in Life on Land, and No. 80 in Climate Action out of 735 universities.

More information about Virginia Tech’s rankings can be found online.

Meghan Marsh

Tracy Vosburgh

540-231-5396

• Campus sustainability
• Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation
• Climate Action Commitment
• College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
• Division of Campus Planning, Infrastructure, and Facilities
• Office of the President
• Responsible Consumption and Production
• Sustainability
• Sustainable Cities and Communities
• Zero Hunger

Related Content

Enhancing sustainable development goals or promoting universities? An analysis of the times higher education impact rankings

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education

ISSN : 1467-6370

Article publication date: 16 June 2022

Issue publication date: 19 December 2022

This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a data source for research and strategic decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

A summative content analysis of the THE-IR methodology was conducted, paying special attention to the macro-structure (university score) and micro-structure (sustainable development goals [SDG] score) levels of the research-related metrics. Then, the data published by THE-IR in the 2019, 2020 and 2021 edition was collected via web scraping. After that, all the data was statistically analysed to find out performance rates, SDGs’ success rates and geographic distributions. Finally, a pairwise comparison of the THE-IR against the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR) was conducted to calculate overlap measures.

Severe inconsistencies in the THE-IR methodology have been found, offering a distorted view of sustainability in higher education institutions, allowing different strategic actions to participate in the ranking (interested, strategic, committed and outperformer universities). The observed growing number of universities from developing countries and the absence of world-class universities reflect an opportunity for less-esteemed institutions, which might have a chance to gain reputation based on their efforts towards sustainability, but from a flawed ranking which should be avoided for decision-making.

Practical implications

University managers can be aware of the THE-IR validity when demanding informed decisions. University ranking researchers and practitioners can access a detailed analysis of the THE-IR to determine its properties as a ranking and use raw data from THE-IR in other studies or reports. Policy makers can use the main findings of this work to avoid misinterpretations when developing public policies related to the evaluation of the contribution of universities to the SDGs. Otherwise, these results can help the ranking publisher to improve some of the inconsistencies found in this study.

Social implications

Given the global audience of the THE-IR, this work contributes to minimising the distorted vision that the THE-IR projects about sustainability in higher education institutions, and alerts governments, higher education bodies and policy makers to take precautions when making decisions based on this ranking.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this contribution is the first providing an analysis of the THE-IR’s methodology. The faults in the methodology, the coverage at the country-level and the overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR have unveiled the existence of specific strategies in the participation of universities, of interest both for experts in university rankings and SDGs.

• University rankings
• Higher education institutions
• Sustainable development goals
• Academic marketing
• Development goals
• Impact Ranking

Bautista-Puig, N. , Orduña-Malea, E. and Perez-Esparrells, C. (2022), "Enhancing sustainable development goals or promoting universities? An analysis of the times higher education impact rankings", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education , Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 211-231. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-07-2021-0309

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Nuria Bautista-Puig, Enrique Orduña Malea and Carmen Perez-Esparrells.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked goals that emerged as a global strategy to solve critical problems (e.g. climate change, poverty) and emphasised the importance of evidence-based decision-making. SDGs establish a defined horizon for the millennium development goals (MDGs) by enlarging their scope, reach and engagement in their creation and implementation ( Fisher and Fukuda-Parr, 2019 ). Agenda 2030, approved in the Rio + 20 conference in 2012, is a 15-year plan that must be embedded in the decision-making of governments, businesses, universities and society at large. The plan encompasses a roadmap of targets and indicators for aligning both developing and developed countries on the path of sustainable development. SDGs refer to policy demands across a wide variety of topics (e.g. health, gender equality). It is therefore challenging to develop specific indicators or tools that can value the goals’ contributions or impacts ( Rafols et al. , 2021 ; Siegel and Bastos Lima, 2020 ).

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are drivers for the achievement of the full set of goals, through their role in human formation, knowledge production and innovation ( Chankseliani and McCowan, 2021 ). As such, universities stand out as models of sustainability ( Wright, 2004 ) due to their societal responsibility in training future professionals and leaders and in stimulating public awareness of sustainability ( Collins, 2017 ). By assuming the role of “agents of change”, HEIs are therefore pivotal to the search for solutions to current environmental problems ( Hesselbarth and Schaltegger, 2014 ). In this regard, considering the three core university missions (research, teaching and knowledge transfer), these institutions can address sustainable development from different perspectives or dimensions: university governance (e.g. vision, missions, strategic plans), campus operations (e.g. energy use, waste), community outreach (e.g. exchange programmes) and assessment and reporting (e.g. dissemination of sustainability results achieved) ( Cortese, 2003 ; Lozano et al. , 2015 ). In addition, developing general educative actions (e.g. programmes for consciousness-raising regarding climate change, hunger, gender) and formulating proper research questions ( Ligozat et al. , 2020 ) are also advisable actions.

As proof of this commitment, the number of HEIs that are signing declarations and agreements (e.g. the Talloires Declaration, the Halifax Declaration, the SDG Accord and the Abuja Declaration) designed to foster sustainable development (SD) and education for sustainable development has increased over time ( Lozano et al. , 2015 ). Linked to the sustainability actions, the publication of reports is another instrument for institutions to disclose and publicise their commitment to sustainability and, by extension, the SDGs ( Caputo et al. , 2021 ). However, universities have been slow to adopt sustainability practices ( Lozano, 2006 ; Velazquez et al. , 2006 ) due to a resistance to change and a lack of awareness, interest and funding. For HEIs to fully engage, achieve and promote the SDGs, they must overcome the lack of long-term policies, insufficient resources ( De La Poza et al. , 2021 ) and the absence of specific targets for countries in which higher education requires reform and rebuilding ( Heleta and Bagus, 2021 ).

In parallel with this situation, the literature related to sustainability and higher education has been continuously evolving, building different areas of interest. Such areas include the relation between universities and specific sustainable topics, such as urban planning, energy efficiency or climate change ( Figure 1 , cluster in red) or the relationship between sustainability and education ( Figure 1 , cluster in blue), training, students ( Figure 1 , cluster in green) and organisation, management and public relations ( Figure 1 , cluster in yellow) [ 1 ]. Therefore, all the sustainability dimensions are addressed. Regardless of the field, a considerable number of publications that include SDG-related keywords [ 2 ] can be observed in Scopus data (from 109 publications in 2015 to 2,904 publications in 2020), which could reconfigure these clusters in the short term.

Given that HEIs are key actors within the context of global sustainability, understanding their contribution to the SDGs remains crucial. However, while there are an increasing number of universities aligning their activities with the SDGs, to document and evidence the wide variety of activities relevant to sustainable development being undertaken by universities is still needed ( Chankseliani and McCowan, 2021 ). In the same train of thought, appropriate tools to measure this contribution have not yet been developed. Moreover, it is important to design alternative initiatives or rankings that measure universities’ contributions to sustainability goals, solve methodological problems and provide data collection at the global level.

specific data sources (i.e. biased towards the Global North);

the research dimension ( Safón, 2019 ); and

the arbitrary weighting used to rank institutions (Gadd, 2021).

In addition, those global rankings do not take societal aspects into consideration (e.g. open science initiatives, sustainability or diversity), thus limiting the use of rankings in determining whether HEIs contribute to the SDGs. This leads the scientometric community to advocate for fair and responsible rankings ( Gadd, 2020 ). The translation of the policy language goals into performance indicators has been indicated to be a primary concern ( Ràfols, 2020 ) because quantitative metrics might miss many of the values of the targets ( Unterhalter, 2019 ; Torabian, 2019 ).

Despite the wide variety of university rankings ( Orduna-Malea and Perez-Esparrells, 2021 ), those valuing sustainability in its broader sense (green rankings) are scarce and represent a change in ranking designs ( De La Poza et al. , 2021 ). The most popular ranking was the GreenMetric World University Ranking, a global sustainability ranking developed by the Universitas Indonesia (UI) in 2010 that values the following dimensions: setting and infrastructure (15%), energy and climate change (21%), waste (18%), water (10%), transportation (18%) and education (18%). However, its simplicity has been considered a crucial limitation in terms of its “categories and indicators in comparison with other systems and the demands of the data types required are generally low for participants and less empirical than those used in other systems” ( Lauder et al. , 2015 ). Galleli et al. (2021) compare this green ranking with the Times Higher Education – World University Rankings (THE-WUR), finding a significant gap in the specificity of the two rankings. Other ranking and evaluation tools related to the commitment of universities (at a national or regional level) to sustainability have emerged. Nonetheless, these initiatives are geographically centred in the Anglo-Saxon regions (e.g. STARS and AASHE STARS at the USA, and People and Planet Green League in the UK).

First introduced in 2015, the SDG index was the first global ranking system translating the SDG narrative to measure the contribution of universities at the country level while using a wide range of appropriate indicators for each goal ( Lafortune et al. , 2018 ). However, collection data limitations, unmeasurable metrics and the low accuracy of the composite index jeopardised its utility ( Diaz-Sarachaga et al. , 2018 ). The Times Higher Education Impact Ranking (THE-IR) was launched in 2019 as the first global ranking at the institution level aimed at measuring the contribution of HEIs in each of the 17 SDGs.

Despite the youth of this ranking (the third edition appeared in 2021), THE-IR has already aroused interest in the higher education community, with both detractors and followers. Torabian (2019) considers this ranking as a positive move that demonstrates HEIs (and the broader public) want to address SD. However, the pursuit of certain indicators or rankings (e.g. in terms of research output) might encourage practices that conflict with the goals themselves. Cardozo et al. (2021) analysed the 2020 edition and found 16.67% of Ibero-American universities were indexed in the overall ranking. SDG8, “Decent work and economic growth”, was the goal most addressed (9.81%), followed by SDG3, “Good health and well-being” (9.68%) and SDG4, “Quality education” (7.69%). Iskandaryan (2020) described how one Russian university is implementing SDG4, while De La Poza et al. (2021) assessed the level of reporting and alignment of SDG achievements with the overall THE-WUR ranking score. They found that the highest-ranked universities are more committed to SDG9, “Industry, innovation and infrastructure” and SDG16, “Peace, justice and strong institutions”. Finally, Calderon (2021) offered a critical overview of this ranking and suggested that it needs to be contextualised, given the worldwide scope of SDGs, according to a regional or national basis that allows a like-to-like comparison between countries.

As with any other ranking, THE-IR should be analysed to ascertain whether its methodology reflect the sustainability degree of universities, and their results are accurate enough to be used as a data source for research and strategic decision-making. While THE-IR has been analysed in the literature, these studies do not include a comprehensive analysis of the THE-IR methodology. De la Poza et al. (2021) compared THE-IR and THE-WUR to discover whether the performance on one SDG in THE-IR is related to the scores obtained in THE-WUR, considering universities’ regions and disciplines. However, they did not cover the raw overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR (which might also reveal not only a potential influence of the latter on the former but also the existence of specific geopolitical strategies to obtain visibility in this ranking). Finally, previous literature has not included all available editions. Given the high variability between the first and second editions (due to the incorporation of all SDGs in the second edition instead of the 11 SDGs considered in the first one), the inclusion of the third edition seems necessary to offer a wider and more accurate picture of this ranking and its methodology.

Therefore, this study aims to analyse and evaluate the THE-IR methodology, coverage and scores offered.

2. Times Higher Education Impact Rankings: a methodological approach

THE-IR follows a complex methodology that includes numerous metrics and composite indicators that should be briefly detailed to comprehend and appropriately contextualise the main results offered in this study. This ranking intends to measure the contribution of universities against each of the 17 goals. This ranking includes all universities teaching at either undergraduate or postgraduate levels; no minimum research requirements are required. The methodology consists of a micro level (scores for each SDG) and a macro-level (creation of an overall score).

At the micro level, each SDG aims to capture the contribution of universities across four wide areas: research, teaching, stewardship (i.e. universities as custodians of significant resources, including not only physical resources but also human resources), and outreach (i.e. work that universities undertake with their local, regional, national and international communities). To accomplish this, a set of metrics is assigned to each SDG. These metrics are grouped into three different categories (research metrics, continuous metrics, evidence metrics) based on the nature and purpose of each metric ( Table 1 ). While research metrics are derived from an external product (Scopus), the remaining metrics (continuous and evidential material) derive from institutional data provided privately and directly by the HEIs to the ranking publisher.

Following this design, each SDG is organised into different groups of metrics. The first group is always related to research metrics (27% out of the total SDG score). The remaining groups (composed of continuous and evidence metrics) depend on each SDG. At the end, a final score (from 0 to 100) is obtained for each SDG.

At the macro-level, only four SDGs are weighted to build the overall score. SDG17 is measured for all universities (22% of the overall score), while the remaining three SDGs selected are those achieving the top three highest scores for each university (26% each), excluding SDG17.

A summative content analysis ( Harwood and Garry, 2003 ) and a descriptive statistical analysis and have been used to accomplish with the objectives of this work.

The summative content analysis aims to analyse documents and texts that seeks to quantify their content in terms of predetermined categories and in a systematic and replicable manner. In this particular case, Impact Rankings Methodology 2021 v.1.3 ( THE Impact Ranking , 2021) has been inspected to determine the use of research-related metrics, specifically the types of indicators used per SDG, their weight in each SDG, and their breadth of use throughout the 17 SDGs. This analysis was limited to the research-related metrics for the following reasons. First, these metrics are bibliometric indicators that have been provided by a commercial database and extensively analysed in the bibliometric literature, therefore providing clear guidance in evaluating their appropriateness. Second, these metrics are transversal in the THE-IR methodology (research metrics is a fixed category used to measure each SDG). Third, these metrics represent a fixed weight of 27% of the overall score for each SDG, rendering their influence on the final score noteworthy. Continuous and evidential metrics have not been directly analysed because they are provided by HEIs privately.

The statistical descriptive analysis is used to describe the characteristics of a sample or data set. In this particular case, data from all available editions of the THE-IR (2019, 2020 and 2021) were considered. All data was directly collected in May 2021 from the official website through web scrapping. This same procedure was followed to collect the data related to the THE-WUR for the same ranking editions. For each university, the university name, the university region (country), and all performance scores were extracted and analysed through descriptive statistics. Pearson correlations were used to calculate the stability of the distribution of universities providing specific SDG data over the different ranking editions. Then, a pairwise comparison method was used to compare both rankings. Countries' information was matched with geographical regions according to a list provided by the United Nations [ 3 ]. In addition, information regarding the designation of “developing” and “developed” areas was also included. ArcGIS [ 4 ] software was used to plot the coverage and overlap data maps. Venn Diagram Plotter [ 5 ] software was used for creating the Venn diagram.

4.1 Analysis of the impact rankings methodology

The THE-IR exhibits a ranking design that raises several concerns at both the macro and micro levels. At the macro-level structure, the consideration of only four out of 17 SDGs is debatable as it allows a university to achieve the top position with zero values for 13 SDGs. However, the major concern is that only one SDG (SDG17: “Partnership for the goals”) is common for all universities, while the remaining scores are related to the top three SDGs with a better score in each university. This means that universities will be compared against different SDGs and mixed into the same classification. While not explicitly expressed in the Berlin Principles [ 6 ], this procedure breaks the effective practices in building university rankings.

Another consequence of the method followed by this ranking is that longitudinal analyses are not permitted as universities might be scored in relation to different SDGs over the editions. For example, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) is evaluated in relation to SDG5, SDG9 and SDG11 in 2020 but to SDG3, SDG9 and SDG16 in 2021. The University of Bahrain constitutes an even more extreme case as all SDGs evaluated were different (SDG2, SDG4 and SDG11 in 2020; SDG5, SDG8 and SDG16 in 2021). This is not an isolated phenomenon as only 23% of all those universities ranked both in the 2020 and 2021 THE-IR editions (695 institutions) were evaluated through the same four SDGs.

This means that the overall score for one university might be generated with data completely different to that used in the previous ranking edition. This could partly explain the abrupt position changes several universities have exhibited in successive editions. Such examples, all of which reduce the reliability of the ranking, include France’s Aix-Marseille University (from 20 th in 2020 to 201–300 th in 2021), Denmark’s Aalto University (from 47 th in 2020 to 201–300 th in 2021), Saudi Arabia’s Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (from 401–600 th in 2020 to 27 th in 2021) or Indonesia’s Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (401–600 th in 2020 to 64 th in 2021).

Moreover, the weights assigned to each of the four SDGs are subjective and not explicitly justified. Because SDG17 is a more generic and controversial goal, its higher weight in the final score is unjustified. These arbitrary weights break Principle 9 ( Make the weights assigned to different indicators [if used] prominent and limit changes to them) included in the Berlin Principles on Ranking Higher Education Institutions [ 7 ]. While some voices have criticised these principles as being decoupled from actual ranking practices ( Barron, 2017 ), updating these principles would uncover a greater number of inconsistencies.

The final scores include data ranges for some universities. While the use of ranges is generally a useful practice to minimise the use of rigid scores, as well as to tolerate margins of error in data, excessively wide ranges produce other side effects. For example, THE-IR’s 2021 edition reveals 103 universities with an overall score of 9.2–36.4, which makes the indicated value useless.

At the micro level, the scores obtained for each SDG can also admit data ranges, finding the same limitation as that mentioned above. For example, 103 universities obtained a score of 0.3–29.0 for SDG12 in the THE-IR’s 2021 edition. Even more extreme behaviour was found concerning the University of Alkafeel (Iraq), which obtained a score of 0.1–38.4 for SDG7. It is unclear how the overall score is calculated when the four SDGs considered have scores with such wide ranges.

The mixture of metrics to measure each SDG introduces another discussion point. The score in each SDG mixes indicators related to “research on topics related to the sustainable development objectives”, and metrics related to “the sustainability of the university as a whole institution”. Furthermore, that one university conducts research on topics related to those goals does not necessarily imply its researchers are contributing to the development of the SDGs or working sustainably.

The number of indicators used by SDGs and the distribution of indicators by type (research, continuous and evidence metrics) is otherwise not homogeneous, which makes possible the existence of metrics with extremely different weights in the final SDG score. For example, SDG4 (“industry, innovation and infrastructure”) is built upon only four indicators, while SDG11 (“sustainable cities and communities”) is built upon 19 indicators ( Table 2 ).

The raw methodology includes 231 different indicators. All 48 research indicators used for each of the 17 SDGs are displayed in Table 3 accompanied by their specific weight in each of the SDGs measured (definitions of these metrics are available in the supplementary material on URL: https://doi.org/10.21950/HSFRDH .

These results raise the following concerns: A co-authorship indicator is introduced in the measurement of three SDGs: cooperation with developing countries (measured twice, in SDG1, “poverty” and SDG17, “partnership for the goals”) and gender (SDG5, “gender equality”). However, co-authorship is not considered in the remaining SDGs.

Each SDG (from 1 to 16) includes a productivity indicator (referred to as Publications in Table 1 ), which is tailored in each SDG by using topic-based queries in Scopus ( Iskandaryan, 2020 ). While this approach is topic-sensitive and denotes a substantial effort, the use of queries from Scopus could be controversial as different query approaches can alter the resulting country rankings ( Armitage et al. , 2020 ). SDG17 includes this same indicator but also includes all publications regardless of the topic. Therefore, the same publication can be measured in at least two SDGs by default. Otherwise, this indicator exhibits different weights: 13.55% (SDG17; “partnership for the goals”), 13% (SDG8, “decent work”), 11.60% (SDG9, “industry”), 10% (SDG1, “poverty”) and 7% in the remaining objectives. This variability is not justified. In addition, this indicator is not normalised according to the size of the university. Otherwise, several principles (e.g. Principles 2, 4, 6 and 9) included in the Leiden Manifesto for research metrics are somewhat compromised ( Hicks et al. , 2015 ).

Concerning the measurement of citation-based impact, a normalised indicator (Field Weighted Citation Impact) is used. However, its usage is limited to a small number of SDGs (3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 17). The absence of the indicator in other SDGs seems to be not clearly justified.

A journal-level metric (Citescore) is mainly used in this ranking. However, it is excluded in four SDGs (1, 3, 9 and 17). While the generic nature of SDG17 can explain its absence, it remains unclear why Citescore is not used in the remaining three SDGs. Moreover, the weight of this indicator is equal to 10% for all SDGs except for SDG8 (“decent work and economic growth”), where it is equal to 14%. The methodology details that this indicator actually measures the proportion of a university’s publications that, according to the Citescore metric, appear in the top 10% of journals. The arbitrariness of this threshold (10%), the absence of discipline filtering (Citescore is a metric without field-normalisation) and the nature of multidisciplinary journals render this count of publications debatable.

An altmetric measure (paper views) is included in SDG3 (“health”) and SDG4 (“education”), but it does not appear in any other SDG. The use of Scopus as a data source might indicate that PlumX is being used as an altmetric data source, but no explicit information has been found. The inclusion of this indicator, with a final weight of 10% in the overall SDG score, is therefore not justified.

Finally, an extra indicator measuring patents-citing publications (referred to as citing patents) is used in SDG9 (“industry, innovation and infrastructure”), but it is outside the research indicators group. This decision is also debatable as the parameter measures citations received by publications from patents. A similar indicator (clinical citations) used in SDG3 (“health”) is otherwise included in the research indicators group. The citing patents indicator, as a citation-based indicator, also reveals a transversal nature, which makes it appropriate to be measured in all SDGs, as the other bibliometric indicators used.

4.2 Institutional participation

The participation of universities in the THE-IR has increased over the editions. In 2020, 768 universities with data in at least one SDG were ranked (out of 859). For the 2021 edition, up to 1,117 universities with data in at least one SDG were ranked (out of 1,240). The number of SDGs for which universities submitted data varied significantly between institutions.

Considering the 2021 edition, we can find four different types of universities. First, the interested universities (9.5 out of all universities submitting information). These universities submitted data for less than 4 SDGs. Consequently, they are not ranked in the overall score. Second, the strategic universities (36.9% of universities). These institutions submit data for a small number of SDGs, around the minimum required (between 4 and 6 SDGs). Third, the committed universities. These institutions provide data for a large quantity of SDGs (between 7 and 15). Finally, the outperformer universities. These institutions submit data for almost all available SDGs ( Figure 2 ).

The distribution of universities per number of SDGs provided shows a slight change from 2020 to 2021 ( R = 0.62; alpha value= 0.01). Comparing the 2020 and 2021 editions, we can see an increase in the raw number of universities providing only the four required SDGs (200 universities in 2021), which constitutes a particularly frequent action, followed by those universities providing data on 16 SDGs (184 in 2021). There was an important decrease in institutions that provided data for all the 17 SDGs from 2020 (19.1% of all submitting universities) to 2021 (7.4%).

The number of universities providing data on each SDG (referred to as “providing universities” in Table 4 ) remains constant for the 2020 and 2021 editions ( R = 0.95), as well as the number of universities where the corresponding SDG is used in their overall score (referred to as “measured universities” in Table 4 ) ( R = 0.99; alpha value = 0.01). We can observe that SDG4 (“quality education”), SDG5 (“gender equality”) and SDG10 (“reduced inequalities”) are the SDGs most frequently submitted by universities. On the contrary, SDG2 (“hunger”) and SDG14 (“life below water”) are the SDGs less frequently provided by universities. Otherwise, an anomalous behaviour is detected for SDG2, with a significant drop in the number of universities providing data on this SDG from 2020 (33.9% of all universities) to 2021 (10.9%). However, SDG2 is used in the overall score for the 83% of universities providing data on this SDG, thus exhibiting an elevated success rate ( Table 4 ).

4.3 Geopolitical analysis

Results confirm an increase in the participation of countries in the THE-IR, from 76 in 2019 to 94 in 2021, exceeding the number of countries in the THE-WUR and the UI GreenMetric ranking for the first time ( Table 5 ). Complete data on the evolution of the number of universities by country in the three editions of THE-IR and THE-WUR is available in the supplementary material.

Japan and Russia are the most represented countries in the THE-IR’s 2021 edition (both with 75 universities). These countries are followed by the UK (50) and Turkey (49) [ 8 ]. The increasing presence of several countries in the different editions of the THE-IR is remarkable. For example, Russia included 45 new universities in 2021 that were not included in the 2019 edition, India had 36 new universities, Iraq 34 and Brazil 23.

The overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR is indicated in Figure 3 . The raw number of universities included in both rankings is growing over the years (from 328 to 687). However, this value is misleading as the coverage of both rankings has increased. 68.36% of universities indexed in the THE-IR were not indexed in the THE-WUR in the 2020 ranking edition. This value drops to 61.5% in 2021.

Several countries participating in the THE-IR are not indexed in THE-WUR (it is noteworthy that institutions do not choose to participate in the THE-WUR; rather, they are selected based on their performances). These countries predominantly come from Latin America and the Caribbean (e.g. Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Curaçao) or West Asia (Palestine, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Armenia). The notable presence of Uzbekistan (12 universities), Ecuador (10 universities indexed) or Azerbaijan (6 universities) should be emphasised ( Table 6 ).

Other countries exhibit extremely unbalanced behaviour regarding their presence in the THE-IR, particularly if we consider the 2021 edition. For example, China includes 91 universities in the THE-WUR (4 th by country rank), but only 13 are participating in the THE-IR (26 th by country rank). Germany includes 48 universities in the THE-WUR (9 th by country rank), while only six are participating in the THE-IR (44 th by country rank).

If we limit the analysis to the elite positions (top 200), we can observe a greater presence of countries in the THE-IR (37 countries) than in the THE-WUR (27 countries). However, despite the greater variety of countries in the THE-IR, most top universities are principally located in developed countries (the UK with 38, Australia with 24 and Canada with 20 universities). Otherwise, only 52 out of the top 200 universities ranked in the THE-WUR are participating in the THE-IR in 2021 (this value was 42 in 2020). These results provide evidence that the top universities indexed in the THE-WUR are not yet participating the THE-IR, but this behaviour may change in coming years if the THE-IR coverage continues to grow.

The distribution of universities throughout the three editions is presented in Figure 4 . On the one hand, East Asia (211 universities in 2019; 231 in 2020; and 250 in 2021), North America (199 in 2019; 202 in 2020; and 211 in 2021) and Northern Europe (147 universities in 2019; 154 in 2020; and 155 in 2021) are the most well-represented by the THE-WUR. On the other hand, East Asia (55 universities in 2019; 92 in 2020), Latin America and the Caribbean (55 in 2019 and 88 in 2020), West Asia (86 in 2020 and 140 in 2021) and Eastern Europe (51 in 2019 and 133 in 2021) are the most well-represented by the THE-IR. Thus, the number of developing countries (187%) has significantly increased in the THE-IR in comparison with the THE-WUR. This might suggest a different strategy for these countries participating in this SDG ranking.

The regions that presented the highest overlap between both rankings are East Asia (43 countries overlap in 2019 to 85 in 2021) and Eastern Europe (from 31 countries in 2019 to 70 in 2021), whereas African Regions (East, West and Southern Africa) scarcely overlap.

5. Discussion

Despite other initiatives launched to measure sustainable development, the THE-IR is the first worldwide ranking that values the contribution of HEIs towards SDGs. This study attempts to explain the methodology, coverage and geopolitical issues (by area and by country) related to this emergent ranking.

First, the content analysis undertaken revealed inconsistencies in the appropriateness and weights assigned to the research metrics employed ( Table 3 ), which might jeopardise the alignment of these metrics to the contributions to the SDGs. These results reinforce the general concerns that have already been indicated in the literature related to the use of performance metrics to measure sustainability ( Torabian, 2019 ; Calderon, 2021 ; De la Poza, 2021 ; Rafols et al. , 2021 ). Beyond research metrics, the irregularities uncovered support the work by Gadd (2020 , 2021 ) with new insights, proving that a lack of a solid ranking structure (methodological design) has the potential to cause adverse consequences (unrealistic results, incorrect decision-making and opportunistic behaviours). Otherwise, the continuous and evidential metrics have not been analysed. As the review of this institutional evidence is not public, the final evaluation of each SDG cannot be reproduced. Consequently, the final scores and ranking positions used in the Results section should be interpreted under this circumstance. Future studies should address this metric to obtain a complete picture of the THE-IR method. For example, conducting systematic surveys among university staff could provide insights into the accuracy and stability of THE-IR.

On the other hand, the results related to the THE-IR/THE-WUR coverage and overlap should be also discussed because the rules regarding participation in these rankings are different. While participation in the THE-WUR is based on performance, participation in the THE-IR operates on a voluntary basis. This fact can explain the growing number of universities from developing countries (most new HEIs) participating in the THE-IR as a reputational phenomenon that results from being excluded from the THE-WUR. The HEIs of developing countries could be becoming aware of sustainability’s relevance to promoting their universities and increasing their academic brands. Thus, concurring with Hazelkorn and Mihut (2021) , this ranking represents an opportunity for institutions to accrue intangible assets in the form of reputation and competitiveness within the ranking’s sphere of influence through achieving the SDGs and improving their positions on the ranking. In turn, as Hazelkorn (2015) foresaw, the university systems of these countries have noted how their flagship universities are positioned more highly in this ranking system than in the THE-WUR and how newcomers have emerged onto the scene of global rankings, reshaping the landscape of these institutions.

The low participation observed of the elite universities might be related to a cost-benefit analysis at the institutional-level. The cost of compiling evidence and the work it encompasses does not present a significant advantage in improving their academic image, which their presence in the THE-WUR ranking already ensures ( De la Poza et al. , 2021 ). Likewise, given that the engagement of universities with sustainability goals is evaluated, obtaining lower positions in the THE-IR could affect their reputation. Therefore, non-participation is a plausible option for most top research universities.

Participation in the ranking being voluntary and the general lack of incentives and funding to foster the involvement of countries might explain the low participation of other regions (e.g. Eastern Africa). Institutions with fewer resources cannot afford participation as it requires extra effort, which constitutes a paradox given this ranking aims to promote sustainability goals. However, the rising participation of other countries from developing regions (e.g. Latin America, the Caribbean and West Asia), which are exclusively participating in THE-IR, suggest a strategic interest (and investment) in promoting “sustainability” branding and increasing academic reputation.

More precisely, the surprising percentage of universities (16.1% in the 2021 edition) providing only the minimum required data to be ranked (four SDGs; Figure 2 ) reinforces the hypothesis that universities in certain regions are making strategic efforts to participate in this ranking due to the possibilities that the designed methodology allows. This is one of the most important unintended consequences. In addition, providing minimum data – also called “cherry-picking” ( Forestier and Kim, 2020 ) and “SDG washing” ( Buhmann, 2018 ) – should not be an acceptable approach due to the integrative and indivisible nature of the agenda ( United Nations, 2015 ). As Calderon (2021) suggests, increasing the number of mandatory SDGs and basing the overall score on them could provide more stability to the forthcoming editions of this ranking.

Finally, this study has used the available online ranking information as a primary source, which relies on the goodwill and evidence of universities (the information on the SDGs is submitted by each university to the THE-IR). The authors are unaware of the quality procedures the ranking publisher has adopted for considering, evaluating and displaying the data gathered. Any remaining errors are our responsibility.

6. Conclusions

THE-IR is the first global university ranking intended to measure HEIs against all the sustainability goals. However, the coverage, methodology and results provided by this ranking raise concerns about their (dis)alignment with the United Nations Agenda objectives. The key conclusions obtained are displayed below in a dual manner:

6.1 Ranking method

The macro-structure level of the THE-IR breaches acceptable standards for designing university rankings (two universities can be ranked in the same list through different indicators, and one university can be measured with different data through different editions), hindering the results’ comparability and limiting their understandability. At the micro-structure level, the use of research metrics compromise several of the Leiden Principles for research evaluation, while the use of scores with extremely wide ranges prevents an accurate interpretation of the final ranked positions. For these reasons, it is concluded that the results derived from this ranking may not be as accurate as assumed.

6.2 Ranking coverage and overlap

The results reveal an increasing number of countries participating in the THE-IR, with a greater representation of worldwide regions in elite positions (top 200) than that obtained in the THE-WUR. The growing number of universities from developing countries and the absence of world-class universities reflect a lack of interest in this ranking from elite universities and an opportunity for less-esteemed institutions. For this reason, it could be concluded that this emergent ranking is being primarily used by institutions that do not achieve leading positions in the THE-WUR. Such institutions can build strategies to achieve higher positions that are benefited by the serious limitations found in the ranking methodology.

Avoid global scores and stick to the specific un-ranged scores of each SDG, where each university is compared through the same battery of indicators.

Reward the number of SDGs on which each university submits data, and the achievement of minimum scores (thresholds) to minimise strategic actions.

Reduce the weight of research metrics, and use these indicators more equitably across all SDGs, avoiding measuring the same indicator in different SDGs.

Offer disaggregated results for each SDG. On the one hand, research (which denotes interest and impact on issues related to an SDG, but does not necessarily imply being sustainable), teaching, transfer and institutional management.

Value the regional or national orientations of universities as well as other qualitative dimensions (e.g., HEIs’ societal contribution).

The findings have clear implications for different actors in the university rankings arena. Firstly, university managers can be aware of the THE-IR’s validity when demanding informed decisions, and better preparing their institutions for participating in sustainability-related rankings. Secondly, university ranking researchers and practitioners can access a detailed analysis of the THE-IR to determine its properties as a ranking and use raw data from THE-IR in other research studies or reports. Thirdly, these results can help the ranking publisher to improve or resolve some of the inconsistencies found in this study. Fourthly, the development of public policies related to the evaluation of the contribution of universities to the SDG should avoid the inclusion of the overall results provided by THE-IR as much as possible, due to the inconsistencies identified in this work. If used, we strongly recommend highlighting each SDG separately, indicating the number of universities analysed in that SDG, and driving readers to the full current methodology. Otherwise, the information provided in public policies might be misinterpreted, leading to inappropriate decisions, which could, in turn, lead to economic and reputational consequences to the higher education institutions. Given the global audience of the THE-IR, the results obtained contribute to minimising the distorted view about the sustainability in the higher education institutions that the THE-IR projects to the Society, and alerts governments, higher education bodies and universities to take precautions when making (economic) decisions based on this ranking.

Last, further research should be undertaken on specific case studies that can help to gain insight into the practical implementation of the ranking. The motivation by different types of organisations (that include comprehensive, technical, public, private or non-profit universities, or institutions placed in large cities) to participate in this ranking should also be explored, particularly considering the distinction between developed and developing countries. It might also be interesting to conduct qualitative research (e.g. a DELPHI analysis) through university leaders to determine the perceived advantages and disadvantages of participating in the THE-IR and whether the doing meaningfully contributes to assessing the impact of universities in achieving SDGs.

Map of keyword co-occurrences of publications on sustainability and higher education

Source: Scopus; powered with VOSviewer ( https://www.vosviewer.com ).

Type of university participation in the Impact Rankings

Overlap of universities between the three editions

Distribution of universities in the THE-WUR (right) and the THE-IR (left) over the years

Overview of metrics analysed in the impact rankings

Research indicators used in the-IR (2021 edition)

Number of universities providing data for each SDG in the the-IR

Unique countries participating in the the-IR but not indexed in the the-WUR

a unique value indicates the number of universities in the three editions.

WA: West Asia; WE: West Europe; SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa; SEA: South-east Asia, LAC: Latin America and the Caribbean; SE: East Europe; NE: North Europe; NA: North Africa; CA: Central Asia

The following query was performed in Scopus: TITLE-ABS-KEY (universit* OR “higher education”) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (sustainab*). This query is intended to gather publications regarding both sustainability and higher education. From the corpus of publications gathered, all those containing at least the following keywords were filtered out: “Sustainable Development”, “Sustainability”, “Education”, “Higher Education”, “University”, “University Sector”, “Universities”, “Higher Education Institutions”, “Education for Sustainable Development”, “Sustainability Education”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “University Campus”. The field was limited to the social sciences. A total of 19,809 keywords were obtained.

“Sustainable Development Goals”, “Sustainable Development Goal”, “SDG”, “SDGs”, “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

available at: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/#geo-regions

available at: www.arcgis.com

available at: https://omics.pnl.gov/software/venn-diagram-plotter

available at: http://200.6.99.248/∼bru487cl/files/Berlin_Principles_Release.pdf

available at: http://ireg-observatory.org/en_old/berlin-principles

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Rafols , I. , Noyons , E. , Confraria , H. and Ciarli , T. ( 2021 ), “ Visualising plural mappings of science for sustainable development goals (SDGs) ”, in Glänzel , W. , Heeffer , S. , Chi , P-S. and Rousseau , R. (Eds), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI2021) , ISSI , pp. 949 - 954 , available at: https://kuleuven.box.com/s/kdhn54ndlmwtil3s4aaxmotl9fv9s329 (accessed 24 December 2021 ).

Safón , V. ( 2019 ), “ Inter-ranking reputational effects: an analysis of the academic ranking of world universities (ARWU) and the times higher education world university rankings (the) reputational relationship ”, Scientometrics , Vol. 121 No. 2 , pp. 897 - 915 , doi: 10.1007/s11192-019-03214-9 .

Siegel , K.M. and Bastos Lima , M.G. ( 2020 ), “ When international sustainability frameworks encounter domestic politics: the sustainable development goals and agri-food governance in South America ”, World Development , Vol. 135 , doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105053 .

Torabian , J. ( 2019 ), “ Revisiting global university rankings and their indicators in the age of sustainable development ”, Sustainability: The Journal of Record , Vol. 12 No. 3 , pp. 167 - 172 , doi: 10.1089/sus.2018.0037 .

Unterhalter , E. ( 2019 ), “ The many meanings of quality education: politics of targets and indicators in SDG4 ”, Global Policy , Vol. 10 No. 1 , pp. 39 - 51 , doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12591 .

United Nations ( 2015 ), “ Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015 ”, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, United Nations, New York .

Velazquez , L. , Munguia , N. , Platt , A. and Taddei , J. ( 2006 ), “ Sustainable university: what can be the matter? ”, Journal of Cleaner Production , Vol. 14 Nos 9/11 , pp. 810 - 819 , doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2005.12.008 .

Wright , T. ( 2004 ), “ The evolution of sustainability declarations in higher education ”, in Corcoran P.B. and Wals A.E.J. (Eds), Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability , Springer , Dordrecht, Netherlands , pp. 7 - 19 , doi: 10.1007/0-306-48515-X_2 .

Acknowledgements

This project has been supported by the project UNIVERSEO (Ref. GV/2021/141), funded by the regional government of Generalitat Valenciana (Spain).

Corresponding author

About the authors.

Nuria Bautista-Puig attained her BsC in Geography (University of Lleida, Spain), MSc in GIS and remote sensing (University of Zaragoza, Spain) and Ph.D. in Library and Information Science (2020, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, AASHE Campus Sustainability Research Award, Spanish thesis award). Currently, she is an affiliated researcher at the University of Gävle (Sweden) and R&D Technical Support at UC3M, sponsored by the YUFERING EC-Funded project. Her areas of expertise include the fields of information science, organisational sustainability and bibliometrics/scientometrics. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2404-0683

Dr Orduña-Malea is Technical Telecommunication Engineer, MA in Library Science, Master in Management of Multichannel Contents, and holds a PhD with a dissertation thesis about webmetrics and university rankings. Currently, he works as a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and History of Art, at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. His lines of research are mainly related to the application of web-based techniques to Science Studies. Enrique also collaborates in funded research projects and international advisory activities about the web visibility of universities, researchers and other online research objects. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1989-8477

Carmen Perez-Esparrells is B.A. in Economics and Business Administration, M.A. in Economics of Education and Labour Economics and holds a Ph.D. in Economics with a dissertation thesis in university funding. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Public Finance of Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). She held the positions of Vice-Rector for Innovation at UAM and of Associate Researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Spanish Ministry of Finance. She has been a member of the Association of Economics of Education (AEDE) since its inception and has held the position of President from 2012 to 2014. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4466-9825

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ASU leaps to No. 2 globally for UN Sustainable Development Goals, retains top US spot

Asu also leads universities worldwide in categories of sustainable cities and communities, life on land and life below water in times higher education ranking.

Editor’s note:   This story is featured in the  2022 year in review .

Arizona State University has been recognized as a global leader in sustainability efforts, coming in second in the world and first in the U.S. in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings released Wednesday.

The annual international publication of university rankings looks at impacts made addressing 17 specific goals aimed at achieving a better world by 2030, known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs). Adopted by all 193 United Nations member states in 2015, these goals provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

“Our health and the health of our planet are intertwined — each is dependent on the other. There is no us without the Earth; it’s as simple as that,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “How do we undo some of the damage that has been done? How do we redefine solutions that are useful throughout society? How do we rethink the very role of the university to secure a healthy, positive future for every creature on this planet?

“That is what we’re aiming to do here at ASU — working toward solutions that benefit all, not just an elite few, and producing the type of knowledge and connections that will help us change the present trajectory that we’re on. Because we don’t have unlimited time to right this ship. There is urgency in what we do, but also a great deal of hope.”

Video by Knowledge Enterprise

Driven by the university’s efforts on such issues as poverty and hunger, gender equality, clean water and air, and climate change, ASU made huge strides in the global ranking, signaling a new era for the university. In one year, the university went from ninth to second in the world out of 1,406 institutions from more than 100 countries, ahead of University College London, the University of Toronto and the University of Queensland, among others — and behind only Western Sydney University in Australia. The global ranking included nearly 300 more institutions this year, compared with 2021. The next highest U.S. institution on the global list is Michigan State University at No. 33.

For 2022, ASU’s score of 98.5 out of 100 points put it at No. 1 in the U.S., coming in ahead of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Michigan State University and Penn State University. It’s the third year in a row that ASU has held the top national spot.

“At a time of multiple complex challenges, from the war in Ukraine to the climate crisis, the rapid growth of university engagement in support of the global development agenda gives me hope,” said Amanda Ellis, former UN Ambassador and co-chair of ASU’s SDG & Beyond Task Force. “I am so inspired by ASU’s growing impact and the power of our partnerships.”

Among the 17 goals, ASU ranked No. 1 in the world in three SDG categories: sustainable cities and communities; life below water; and life on land.

"Our planet is pushing back on us. We are learning that our planet is not limitless; it’s trying to tell us something through droughts, wildfires, viruses and more," said Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Global Futures. "At ASU, we are focused on shaping futures in which life can thrive on a healthy planet. We are dedicated to supporting life on Earth’s physical, biogeochemical and societal systems, and we are honored to see this work reflected in the Times Higher Education Impact ranking."

ASU’s efforts placed it in the top 10 in seven total SDGs. In addition to the three No. 1s, ASU was No. 4 in climate action, No. 6 in no poverty, No. 7 in clean water and sanitation and No. 9 in peace, justice and strong institutions.

On the university level, ASU is breaking new ground on buildings, programs, initiatives and partnership programs:

• Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health: ASU opened its largest research facility — a new  headquarters  that serves as the enabler for shaping tomorrow, today. It was also home to ASU’s recent  Earth Week , featuring both urgent calls to action and messages of hope including keynotes by Jane Goodall and Conservation International founder Peter Seligmann, all in recognition of the solutions being developed by the university’s researchers and global network of partners.
• Allen Coral Atlas: Led by Greg Asner, the  Allen Coral Atlas  is the first global habitat tool to map the world’s tropical, shallow coral reefs. By combining satellite imagery, advanced analytics and object-based analysis, global collaboration has resulted in maps that show the marine ecosystem's benthic and geomorphic data in unprecedented detail.
• MechanicalTree: Developed by Carbon Collect in partnership with ASU and its  Center for Negative Carbon Emissions , the world’s first  MechanicalTree  was installed on ASU’s Tempe campus to collect carbon from the atmosphere in order to help mitigate global warming. The MechanicalTree — which was developed based on the research of ASU carbon-capture pioneer  Klaus Lackner  — will rise to a height of 33 feet (10 meters) to passively collect carbon from ambient air, not using energy to drive the capture. Once loaded with carbon, it will retract into a canister that is 9 feet (2.7 meters) tall, where the carbon drawn from the air is able to be stored for other uses. If widely deployed, many of these trees could have a positive impact on our planet by mitigating the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
• ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet: Building on a long-standing partnership, the  ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet  launched to leverage ASU’s applied research, networks, expert faculty and innovation through shared aspirational commitments to the betterment of people, the planet and our global communities.
• Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences: In October 2021, ASU’s Global Futures Lab  partnered with BIOS , the premier deep-ocean observatory in the Western Hemisphere, to advance the understanding of the ocean’s contributions to Earth’s overall health and explore what is needed to secure these services into the future.
• WE Empower UN SDG Challenge: The  WE Empower UN SDG Challenge  welcomed a new cohort of female entrepreneurs and leaders from around the world who are pushing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals forward through sustainable business practices.

Dave White (left) and Michelle Schwartz represent Arizona State University at the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking 2022 announcement in Stockholm, Sweden. “Sending special thanks from Sweden to the ASU Times Higher Education Impact Rankings committee convened by Dr. Sheila Ainlay and Dr. Scott Brenden for their dedication to this effort,” White said on April 26. Photo courtesy of Dave White

Here are a half-dozen of the many other ways in which ASU is working to help people and the planet prosper:

• The Global Carbon Removal Partnership , led by Thunderbird School of Global Management Director-General and Dean Sanjeev Khagram, is a group made up of policymakers, members of the private sector and civic society seeking to influence policy and market environments to support the rapid scale-up of carbon-removal actions. ASU is also home to the international public-private alliance New Carbon Economy Consortium , focused on harnessing innovation to drive a carbon-neutral to carbon-negative world.
• The Connective is a consortium that is building a first-of-its-kind “smart region” for the greater Phoenix area with the Thunderbird School’s Phoenix Global Rising initiative — a multistakeholder partnership advancing Phoenix’s global capacity. With the support of Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, ASU is helping deploy equitable and scalable technology solutions that support the Valley’s goals of sustainability and improving quality of life.
• Modular gender education training for  parliamentarians and global changemakers : These videos aim to eliminate discriminatory laws against women around the world and are now used by the nearly 200 member countries of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the UN partner agencies.
• The Decision Center for a Desert City is focused on advancing research, education and partnerships for urban water transitions through the power of data. Complementing its work is the Kyl Center for Water Policy , which promotes research, analysis, collaboration and dialogue to build consensus on sound water stewardship for Arizona and the West.
• The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems provides research and education options to address the integrity of the agriculture systems and the well-being of farmers, producers and providers, and to help drive policy-relevant knowledge to ensure food safety.
• The Global SDG 5 Notification Tool , designed by ASU's Erin Carr-Jordan and implemented by the Luminosity Lab , which provides insight into country-level progress on legal gender equality with the ability to compare 190 countries at a granular level. With data on local laws provided by the World Bank, parliamentarians and others, this tool is used by the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review to hold countries accountable to their commitments.
• The  Knowledge Exchange for Resilience   builds community resilience through the sharing of knowledge across sectors, driving discovery through responsive research, and supporting the development of agile solutions that enhance our shared capacity to withstand, respond and transform through both sudden shocks and long-term stresses.

Top photo: A bird’s-eye view of Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii . Photo by Greg Asner/ASU

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Times higher education (the) impact rankings.

For the second year running, we have been rated as the number one university in the world on climate action, and we plan to keep improving.

The University of Tasmania is officially the tertiary sector’s world-leader in taking climate action, with the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings rating us number one in climate action globally for 2023.

1500+ Universities ranked

THE World University Rankings rate more than 1500 universities from around the world, including the most esteemed, comparing them across a range of metrics.

17 Sustainable Development Goals

Since 2019, THE has included its Impact Rankings table, which rates more than 1500 universities against the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), covering socio-cultural, environmental and economic sustainability.

#1 In climate action globally

For goal SDG 13, Climate Action, the University of Tasmania scored best in the world, and we ranked 5th in the world overall, against all the SDGs combined.

So, what are these SDGs all about?

The SDGs cover a range of sustainability categories and we scored highly in several of them. We excelled in the SDGs for Life Below Water (3 rd ) and Life on Land (4 th ).

SDG 13, Climate Action, specifically rates a university’s research on climate change, their use of energy, their preparations for dealing with the consequences of climate change, and efforts to educate and inform the broader public about the importance of taking action.

Fortunately for us, we were able to demonstrate fairly easily that we are addressing these criteria, because, just like the THE Impact Rankings, our Strategic Framework for Sustainability (PDF 2.5 MB) and Sustainability Policy (PDF 161.1 KB) are also directly informed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

What does the Climate Action goal specifically measure?

SDG 13 Climate Action measures a university’s performance in four areas:

• Research on climate action
• Low-carbon energy use
• Environmental education measures
• Commitment to carbon neutrality

The research category looks at the number of published papers by our researchers, and the proportion of those papers published in the top 10% of journals.

Low-carbon energy use is determined by the amount of low-carbon energy used by the university and the proportion of electricity sourced from low-carbon sources.

Environmental education takes into account local education and awareness campaigns, efforts to inform and support government and NGOs on climate change adaptation and climate change disaster planning.

And to prove our commitment to carbon neutrality we needed to demonstrate not just that we had committed to the task, but that we had set a target date, which is a minimum 50% reduction on our gross emissions by 2030.

• Low carbon energy
• Environmental education
• Carbon neutral

Globally, our researchers have been at the leading edge of climate change for about 30 years and our researchers have published over 400 titles on climate change and climate science since 2016.

Our  Climate Futures Group was created specifically to bridge the gap between scientific research and the needs of industries, communities and government, to support their decision making.

Additionally, our  Tasmanian Policy Exchange was established in 2020 to work with government and the community to address policy issues where our expertise can help improve Tasmania’s future.

And four University of Tasmania scientists were lead authors of the  AR6 IPCC Working Group II report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability .

We closely  monitor and control our energy use through energy use in buildings is monitored regularly through meters and many building HVAC areas are controlled in real-time by the Building Management System (BMS).  Our Energy Strategic plan 2018-2022 (PDF 2.0 MB) also outlines our strategic initiatives to improve our energy efficiency and self-generate renewable energy. Some of our initiatives include switching to low-energy LED lighting and installing solar panels.

We are involved with a range of projects aimed at helping our greater community to take meaningful climate action, as well as our on-campus initiatives like introducing the  Sustainable Living courses , and a Sustainability major that is available for most of our bachelor’s degrees.

The University hosts the annual  Global Climate Change Week , setting up local and coordinating international activities related to climate change. We are also part of the  Curious Climate program, encouraging public engagement with scientific information and experts.

We assist local and regional organisations with drafting climate action plans and cooperate with both state and local governments with their planning for climate change risk/disaster and monitoring, with projects such as the work done through our Tasmanian Policy Exchange . We are key players in both Education for Sustainability Tasmania and the  Climate Justice Network , who focus on climate adaptation.

And in response to the latest report from the UN’s  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , the University has developed the  Emissions Reduction Strategic Plan 2022-2030 (PDF 2.0 MB) . This is our ambitious plan to reduce gross emissions by at least 50% by 2030, from a 2015 baseline year, well ahead of current global standards.

We all have an opportunity to let sustainability guide our actions and join a shared mission to become the world's most sustainable university.

Excited about sustainable living

I am lucky enough to be the coordinator for our Sustainability Integration Program for Students (SIPS) – an international award-winning program. Each year I work directly with around 60 students from across the full breadth of the University as…

A beacon of sustainability

Beth Rad did not set out to study sustainable living. Nor did she plan to live on a remote Tasmanian island for six months. But these opportunities found her, and she’s glad they did.Originally from Sydney, Beth and her partner quit their jobs a…

How you can have a green impact no matter what you study

Chester James-Smith is a fifth-year medical student. He’s also the winner of the Australasian Green Impact Student Awards for 2020. Chester was always interested in his personal environmental impact, but it was during his time…

Working together, we’ve become certified carbon neutral, divested from fossil fuels, and are recognised as the world's leading university on climate action.

We see sustainability as an opportunity across everything we do at our university, so there’s many ways to explore your passion for sustainability beyond what you study.

Study is an adventure

Start yours in 2024

Study for a sustainable future and learn from the experts in your field at the world's #1 university for climate action.

Fuel your curiosity, build your career, or indulge a passion. Or all three at once!

With scholarships available to help you study, or relocate, it’s time to start your journey.

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Equity Diversity & Inclusion

Times higher education impact rankings, the times higher education (the) university impact rankings measure the progress of universities working to achieve the united nations’ sustainable development goals (sdgs).   .

The Impact Rankings are the first global attempt to measure university progress specifically around the SDGs adopted by all United Nations States in 2015. The SDGs provide an outline for improving outcomes for people and the planet by working together in a global partnership. Universities have a critical role in the achievement of the SDGs globally. Our unique position as creators and disseminators of knowledge and as key drivers of innovation, economic development, and societal wellbeing put us in a position to lead and effect change. 

2023 Impact Rankings

UNSW ranked =18 th in the world out of 1,591 participating institutions, up from =55 th in 2022. The University secured 10 top 100, 9 top 50 places and 3 top ten places – our best result to date.

UNSW’s three strongest areas under the THE rankings methodology are: 

The University's meteoric rise from =39 th to =2 nd in SDG 13 Climate Action,  from =42 nd to =9 th in SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and from =72 nd to =10 th in SDG 15 Life on Land reflects our world class and pioneering research, our strong partnerships and our significant contributions  through   campus operations,   research and outreach in these areas.  

The successful implementation of the 2019-2021 Environmental Sustainability Plan and its new 2022-2024 iteration have been key to UNSW’s operational sustainability and have hugely contributed to our success in the rankings, including our particularly strong performance in SDG 13 and SDG 11.

UNSW’s other top 50   performances   include:  

• SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation (=37)
• SDG 7   Affordable and Clean Energy   (=17)   
• SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (=50)
• SDG 12   Responsible Consumption and Production (=25)  
• SDG 14 Life Below Water   (=24)    

Read the full article

2022 Impact Rankings

UNSW  ranked 55 th in the world out of 1,406 institutions , up from 96 th in 2021. The University secured 10 top 100 and eight top 50 places.

UNSW’s   three strongest areas under the rankings methodology , consistent with 2021 :

The University’s highest ranking of 17 was achieved in SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy.

UNSW’s ranking in SDG 6   reflects   UNSW ’ s contributions to clean water and   sanitation   through   campus operations,   research and outreach. It is also strengthened through participation in a number of key initiatives   such   as the Australian Water Partnership (AWP),   the Connected Waters Initiative (CWI), and a range of ongoing, long-term collaborations with local and global government and industry partners.  

UNSW’s other top 100   performances   include:  

• SDG 2 Zero Hunger (=46)
• SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (87)
• SDG 13 Climate Action (39)  
• SDG 14 Life Below Water   (29)   
• SDG 15   Life on   Land   (=73)   

UNSW’s meteoric rise from =59 to 17 in SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy  was impacted by the university’s pioneering research in the development of solar photovoltaic technology, enabling the University to switch to 100% solar energy in 2020 under a world first Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

2021 Impact Rankings

UNSW placed in the top 100 for seven Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an increase from four last year, and ranked 96 in the world overall out of 1,117 institutions.

UNSW Sydney ranked 8th in the world in the 2021 THE Impact Rankings for its work towards ensuring availability and sustainable management of clean water and sanitation.  

The University’s high ranking in SDG 6 reflects UNSW’s contributions to clean water and sanitation through campus operations, research and outreach, and strengthened through active UNSW participation in a number of key initiatives such as the Australian Water Partnership (AWP), the Connected Waters Initiative (CWI), and a range of ongoing, long term collaborations with local and global government and industry partners, such as with WaterNSW, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Mekong River Commission, as well as with NGOs such as Z-NET Uralla and the Love Mercy Foundation in Uganda. UNSW on campus contributions toward SDG 6 are also underpinned by the  Environmental Sustainability Plan 2019-21 .

Read the full  article 

2020 Impact Rankings

UNSW ranked 66 in the world overall out of 766 institutions from more than 75 countries.

UNSW Sydney ranked first in the world for its work toward efficient use of resources and the minimisation of waste. Along with the top ranking in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, UNSW placed fourth in the world for SDG 7, Affordable and Clean Energy. In total, UNSW was placed in the top 100 for four SDGs, with equality and gender equity accounting for the University’s two other highly-ranked areas. 

The University’s high rankings in SDG 7 and SDG 12 reflect UNSW’s contributions to clean energy and resource efficiency through campus operations, research and outreach and strengthened through the launch of the  Environmental Sustainability Plan 2019-21 .

Read the full article

How the ranking is calculated 

Universities receive a score and ranking for each submitted SDG. The score for each SDG considers a range of indicators, including a university’s research performance, campus management and operations, and community partnerships and collaborations.  The overall rank is then generated from the score for mandatory SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals, plus the three strongest of the other SDGs for which it provided data.   

According to the THE methodology, the score from each SDG is scaled so that the highest score in each SDG in the overall calculation is 100 and the lowest score is 0. This is to adjust for minor differences in the scoring range in each SDG and to ensure that universities are treated equitably, whichever SDGs they have provided data for.

It is these scaled scores that THE use to determine which SDGs a university has performed most strongly in; they may not be the SDGs in which the university is ranked highest or has scored highest based on unscaled scores.  

More information

Sustainability Matters

Explore UNSW's contributions to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, designed to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges, such as ending poverty and hunger, climate change, the reduction of inequalities and more. 

Find out more about the initiatives and reports UNSW use to assess progress and show performance.

Publications & Reports

Access reports and publications associated with UNSW's commitments and contributions to each of the 17 SDGs.

Alternatively, use our A–Z index

Manchester named world’s best university for action on sustainable development

The University of Manchester has been named the world's number one university in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, released today (Wednesday, 21 April).

The University topped the table of more than 1,200 universities from around the world on action taken towards the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The UN's 17 SDGs are the world's call to action on the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing humanity and the natural world.

With a record number of universities from 98 countries taking part in this year’s rankings, Manchester topped the overall table as well as achieving first place for its work towards the SDGs of Sustainable Cities and Communities and Responsible Consumption and Production as well as a second place for work in relation to Life Below Water. The University’s research work in these specific SDGs includes mobilising urban living labs to  create sustainable infrastructure ; setting the standard for  cleaner skies ; and removing harmful pollutants from industrial wastewater with  innovative technology .  

But it isn’t just the University’s research in these areas that helped it top the rankings. As the UK’s only university to have social responsibility as a core goal, Manchester plays a leading role in tackling the SDGs in four ways: research impact, learning and students, public engagement activity and responsible campus operations. These are realised in the pioneering civic engagement work of our  cultural institutions , how  students  are engaged with the SDGs, our commitment to a  zero-carbon  future, paying staff a  living wage , and the quality of  reporting  of progress on each of the 17 SDGs.  

I will always be proud to be part of The University of Manchester family and its alumni community. This deserved recognition for its enormous social, environmental and economic impact is even more reason for everyone associated with the institution to be immensely pleased.

President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell said: “We’re absolutely delighted to top the world in the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings in 2021, but more importantly we’re pleased to be part of a growing community of universities committed to measuring and sharing their societal impact. 

“We’ve taken part in the University Impact Rankings since their inception because we value the feedback they provide about our performance on each of the global goals. They cover every aspect of a university’s impact: our research, our teaching and learning, our engagement with the public and how we operate as sizeable organisations in our cities and regions.” 

UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UNAIDS, Dr Winnie Byanyima – who is also an alumna of the University and honorary doctorate recipient – said: “I will always be proud to be part of The University of Manchester family and its alumni community. 

“This deserved recognition for its enormous social, environmental and economic impact is even more reason for everyone associated with the institution to be immensely pleased. I offer them my sincerest congratulations.” 

We’re absolutely delighted to top the world in the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings in 2021, but more importantly we’re pleased to be part of a growing community of universities committed to measuring and sharing their societal impact. 

Phil Baty, Chief Knowledge Officer, Times Higher Education, said: “It is wonderful to see from this unique Times Higher Education data analysis that UK universities are making a major impact to global society across a whole range of individual Sustainable Development Goals.  

“In a year that has seen record levels of participation in the impact rankings, with 1,240 universities from 98 countries and regions included across the 18 ranking tables, and the clear strength of institutions in every corner of the world when it comes to helping achieve these shared goals, the success of The University of Manchester and many British peers is testament to the vital role universities across the home nations are playing in helping to ensure a sustainable future.” 

For more information visit The University of Manchester  SDG webpages   

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Uniting higher education, governments, industry and society for a sustainable future

Pre-congress day: 29 may 2023 congress: 30 may – 1 june 2023 thuwal, saudi arabia.

We are delighted to announce that the next Global Sustainable Development Congress is taking place on 10–13 June 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. Visit the website to explore the agenda themes and sessions, and book your ticket to secure your place.

  2024 website

The Global Sustainable Development Congress brought together 1,600+ global thought leaders and innovators to discuss urgent solutions to the sustainability emergency.

Challenging the usual thinking on what higher education, governments, businesses and society must do to help society meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the congress was a call to action for global universities to pivot their educational, research, innovation and outreach programmes towards tangible outcomes.

Delegates from around the world immersed themselves in sessions aligned with the societal transformations needed to achieve the SDGs.

Agenda themes:

• Sustainable health and demography
• Sustainable energy and industry
• Sustainable environment
• Sustainable cities and communities

The event featured a pre-launch reveal of the THE Impact Rankings to take a closer look at performance across popular SDGs and learn from best practice around the world, followed by the live reveal of the full ranking on 1 June.

  Download the congress communiqué

Time for universities to be ‘heroic’ on sustainability, says Crow

Academy is ‘at the heart’ of humanity’s failures to get to grips with the scale of the issue, warns the president of Arizona State University.

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Work together to ensure refugees can access HE, UN adviser says

Refugee participation in tertiary education rises from 1 to 6 per cent in four years but much more needs to be done, congress hears.

Co-create knowledge with those on climate front line, says Halliday

Transdisciplinary solutions are vital for humanity to overcome the challenges it faces, according to the founding dean of the US’ first climate school.

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Universities at a time of global crisis

Read an open letter from Dr Tony Chan, president of KAUST, a heartfelt call to action outlining his commitment to net zero carbon emissions, and a zero waste and zero-wastewater strategy.

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THE collaborated with KAUST's Health, Safety and Environment department and the Sustainability Office to alleviate the carbon equivalent generated by the travel of delegates and speakers by planting mangroves.

Also known as ‘blue carbon’, mangroves typically sequester carbon two to four times faster than mature tropical forests and contain the highest carbon density of all terrestrial ecosystems.

Each mangrove tree planted removes over 308kg of CO 2 from the atmosphere over the growth life of the tree.

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Asia University Rankings 2024: revelations of research strength

Our revised rankings methodology shows asian research is stronger than appreciated, as participation and competition rises across a dynamic region writes ellie bothwell.

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Browse the full results of the Asia University Rankings 2024

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings have tracked the remarkable growth of China’s research strength for 20 years. But it turns out that the country’s research might is even greater than previously recognised.

Our revised and improved methodology – which includes new metrics relating to research quality and patents – highlights performance that was not completely visible in previous rankings. And when we home in on Asia to produce the 12th edition of the Asia University Rankings, we shine a more intense spotlight on the trends from this rapidly developing region of global higher education.

The results show that China receives a boost from our more comprehensive assessment of university research . Japan’s position is also stronger than has been appreciated in the past, as our analysis shows. Meanwhile, other countries have seen a decline in their overall ranking performance, despite improving in the new metrics, reflecting the fierce competition in the continent.

Separate analysis delves into the changing pillar performance of some of the leading universities in the ranking and highlights their differing priorities.

We also hear directly from the leaders of two established, and rising, institutions about their strategies for the months ahead. Ji-Beom Yoo, president of Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in South Korea, discusses pressing staff and students to broaden their horizons and allowing failure , and Alexander Ping-kong Wai, president and vice-chancellor of Hong Kong Baptist University , shares his solution to the rapidly changing jobs market .

Meanwhile, Sibrandes Poppema, president of Sunway University in Malaysia, which is ranked for the second time this year, shares how his institution is strengthening links across countries and with industry and society .

Our view from south Asia comes courtesy of Asghar Zaidi, who was vice-chancellor of Government College University Lahore from 2019 to 2023. He discusses the higher education issues that should be top of the agenda for Pakistan’s new government .

This year, we welcome lots of new institutions to the ranking, too. We rank 739 universities, 70 more than last year, while a further 390 are listed as reporters. Our map shows that many of the newly ranked institutions are based in west or south Asia.

We look forward to tracking their performance over the coming years, using our most robust methodology to date.

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Countries/regions represented in the Asia University Rankings 2024

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