THE (Times Higher Education) has been providing trusted performance data on universities for students and their families, academics, university leaders, governments and industry, since 2004. We create university rankings to assess university performance on the global stage and to provide a resource for readers to understand the different missions and successes of higher education institutions.
Our rankings cover the three main areas of university activity: research, impact and teaching.
Global rankings
The THE World University Rankings provide the definitive list of the world’s best universities, with an emphasis on the research mission. It is the only global university league table to judge research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching (the learning environment); research environment (volume, income and reputation); research quality (the outputs of research); industry (knowledge transfer) and international outlook (staff, students and research). It uses 18 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons. The overall list is accompanied by 11 subject-specific rankings.
We also draw on the rich database behind the World University Rankings to publish a series of regional and thematic rankings, offering deeper insights into a wider range of universities against a wider range of missions. These include: Arab University Rankings, Asia University Rankings, Latin America University Rankings, World Reputation Rankings and Young University Rankings.
Impact rankings
The THE Impact Rankings, founded in 2019, are the only global league tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We publish an overall ranking, as well as 17 tables showing universities’ progress towards delivering each of the SDGs.
Teaching rankings
Our teaching rankings were developed to offer a different assessment of excellence in higher education, and to enable us to rank institutions that are often not research-focused enough to be eligible for the World University Rankings. We launched our first teaching ranking in 2016. These rankings are geographically focused because the data associated with teaching, and the issues related to it, tend to be much more local than global in nature. We publish one teaching ranking: the Japan University Rankings. These rankings put student engagement and student success at their heart.
Other rankings
Our Sub-Saharan Africa University Rankings combine aspects of our impact, research and teaching rankings to explore how universities in Africa can deliver on the challenges of the UN SDGs and Agenda 2063.
