“A Sign of the Times”: Examining University Participation in Times Higher Education Rankings

• In Event: Systems, Policy, and Institutional Climate Governance

Proposal

Introduction
Times Higher Education offers two well-known and profitable university rankings. The first, called Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR), assesses what they call ‘university performance’ and largely focuses on research output and reputation. The second, called The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THEIR), purport to be “a unique, global framework to evaluate, benchmark and showcase universities’ social and economic impact” as defined by the United Nations’ SDGs, and as such, are often referred to as ‘sustainability rankings’. While university rankings have been around for decades, generating significant literature and critique, university sustainability rankings are a newer trend that have spread quite rapidly over the past few years.

Sustainability rankings claim to be one way that universities can benchmark and improve their contributions to sustainability (Buckner & Zhang, 2024). But in practice, universities that participate and do well on sustainability rankings are typically the same as those who perform well on other research-oriented rankings, suggesting that the two rankings schemes may not be that different from one another. A key concern for those interested in sustainability in higher education is that scholars have suggested that sustainability rankings might be just another way university can pursue global recognition and reputation and may engage in ‘greenwashing’ to do so. In this study, we seek to explore this topic by examining what factors are associated with participation in the two Times rankings and specifically compare factors associated with participation in THE-WUR (i.e., world-class rankings) as compared to participation in THEIR (i.e., SDGs).

Literature Review
There is an extensive scholarly literature and debate on university rankings that has documented the logics underpinning their global diffusion, as well as the factors that incentivize institutional participation (Brankovic et al., 2023; Hazelkorn, 2015). Rankings have become powerful instruments of marketing and branding, as universities increasingly compete in global markets for reputation, students, and funding (Brankovic et al., 2018; Hazelkorn, 2015; Lynch, 2014; Saisana et al., 2011; Sauder & Espeland, 2009). Yet, alongside their rise, numerous critiques have emerged, questioning the internal consistency of rankings (Saisana et al., 2011) and criticizing their role in intensifying competition, reinforcing hierarchies, and privileging particular models of excellence (Hazelkorn, 2015; Lynch, 2014; Stack, 2020, 2021) that are most dominant in the Global North.

Within this broader landscape, sustainability rankings have recently emerged as a new and specialized type of global ranking. Like other university rankings, SARs are premised on the logics of standardization and comparability, implicitly assuming that sustainability is a singular construct that can apply universally, and one that can be operationalized and measured quantitatively. However, sustainability rankings also differ from other global rankings in important ways. Rather than focusing narrowly on research productivity, citations, or academic reputation, they claim to evaluate universities’ contributions to the public good, particularly in relation to environmental sustainability, sustainable development, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Because understandings of sustainability differ widely across contexts and may be even more contextually contingent than research productivity or reputation, we would expect the universities that are highly ranked on THE-WUR to be quite different from those who participate and perform well on THEIR. Similarly, we would expect the factors that shape participation to vary. However, there is reason to believe that top performers on the two rankings are remarkably similar, suggesting they may not be that different from one another.

Research Question
In this study, we ask what factors are associated with universities being ranked in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, and the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking? Do the factors associated with being ranked in these two rankings differ?

Data and Analysis
To conduct our analysis, we draw on a near-census list of universities worldwide, which comes from the 2022 International Association of Universities World Higher Education Database (WHED), which includes identifying information and basic institutional characteristics for roughly 17,000 Bachelor’s-degree granting institutions worldwide (International Association of Universities, 2022). The dependent variable is a binary variable indicating whether the university was ranked in the THE World University Ranking, or the THE Impact Ranking, collected in 2024. These two sources of data allow us to identify which universities in the world participated in THE rankings and which did not. We then carry out descriptive analysis and a series of multilevel logistic regression to model the logged odds that a given university was ranked in each ranking. We examine the role of multiple factors, including: university size (i.e., student enrollment), research orientation (i.e., PhD granting), sector (i.e., public/private) and national characteristics such as GDP per capita.

Findings and Discussion
Our descriptive analyses show that around 8.5% was ranked in the THE-WUR while 7.7% of universities worldwide were ranked in THEIR, with many participating in both rankings.

We examine numerous university and national level factors and find they vary by the two rankings. Specifically, our regression models show that participation and inclusion in THE-WUR is associated with: university size, research orientation, founding era, sector (private versus public), and national wealth.

In contrast, participation in THEIR, is related to fewer characteristics, namely: research orientation and the number of degrees offered at the institution. Meanwhile, the strongest predictor of participation in THEIR is participation in THE-WUR. Combined, our findings suggest that THEIR are somewhat more inclusive than the THE-WUR and may open up space for some universities, including private, smaller in student enrolment, in lower-middle and upper middle income countries, to demonstrate their “impact” to the SDGs and in so doing, reap the benefits of participation, including signalling global orientation and pursue global recognition status. That said, our findings also indicate that while somewhat more inclusive than research-oriented WURs, THEIR nonetheless seem to be mainly associated with participation in other types of rankings, supporting the argument that even if somewhat more inclusive, they also constitute just another novel rankings products where institutions with strong data infrastructures can vie for global recognition.

Authors

• Elizabeth Buckner, University of Toronto OISE

• You Zhang, OISE, University of Toronto