Increase in number of women-led universities despite high profile resignations, new data show 

There has been a four per cent increase in the number of female leaders of the world’s top 200 universities – despite two high-profile female leaders, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, recently resigning – data gathered by Times Higher Education (THE) show. 

Women are the heads of 50 out of the world’s top 200 universities – 25% for the first time ever – with two more female leaders in the job compared with last year. This is 22 more than in 2015 when THE first started collecting the data, representing an 79 per cent increase over nine years.    

While the US is home to the highest number of female leaders it has seen a decline from 16 to 15 in post, as of 1 February. The US has 56 universities in the top 200, making their share of leading universities run by women, 27 per cent. 

There are five more leaders across Europe compared with last year. The UK now has nine leaders, up from eight last year, after Deborah Prentice took charge at the University of Cambridge in July 2023. More than a third (36 per cent) of top UK universities are led by women.  

The Netherlands has 11 universities in the top 200. It has six, up from five last year, females leading higher education institutions in the country – taking 55 per cent of the top positions. 

Germany has consistently had a strong cohort of female leaders and, this year, six of its 21 top universities have women at the helm (29 per cent). Sweden has doubled its female leaders in the top 200, from one to two.  

Italy has one female leader in the top 200, from Sapienza University of Rome. Finland, Ireland and New Zealand each have one university in the top 200 led by women. 

Top 10 universities led by women 2024 

Note: The analysis was based on the university leader in post on 1 February 2024 and included 201 institutions because three universities were tied in 199th place. 

Claudine Gay - Harvard University’s second female and first black president, stepped down in January amid plagiarism accusations and criticism following her appearance before a congressional hearing on antisemitism. Professor Gay’s presidency lasted six months – the shortest in Harvard’s 388-year history. 

Elizabeth Magill, who was president of University of Pennsylvania, was also at the hearing and resigned in December after appearing to evade the question of whether students who called for the genocide of Jews would be in breach of the university’s code of conduct. Professors Gay and Magill were both replaced by men. 

This year’s figures show a year-on-year increase of female university leaders with 48 led by women last year, 43 in 2022, 41 in 2021, 39 in 2020 and 34 in 2019 and 2018. 

Despite this positive news, with 50 of the top 200 global institutions being led by women, it is way off parity. Of the 27 countries that feature universities in the top 200, 14 countries (52 per cent) did not have any women leading their top institutions. 

Times Higher Education’s rankings editor Ellie Bothwell, said: “The resignations of two very distinguished female leaders from two prestigious Ivy League universities was a massive set-back and was only offset by the increase in the number of female leaders in Europe. 

“While progress has been made over the last nine years, which is encouraging, there is still a long way to go to get an equal number of male and female leaders.” 

The data was drawn from THE’s World University Rankings 2024.  

 Note: This press release was amended at 1.30pm on 6 March due to an error, to state the number of female leaders of the top 200 universities is 50, not 51. Other statistics were amended accordingly.