Many universities see the value in being part of our family of rankings. As we’ve recently outlined, our rankings are increasing in size and influence; in particular, we have seen explosive growth in our Impact Rankings. But why are more and more institutions across the world choosing to take part in this exercise?
One reason might be reputation. Our data shows that universities that are part of our World University Rankings on average enjoy a strong reputation that is maintained over time. Conversely, we see that universities that have never participated, or have dropped out, on average, see a significant fall in their reputations over time. Reputation is based on universities’ ranks in the latest Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, which itself is based on the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey.
We see a similar effect in our Impact Rankings: universities ranked in the 2023 edition are performing strongly in their reputations. For universities that have participated in the past, but not in the latest edition, we see a lower average, with a very slight dip in their reputations over time. However, for universities that have never participated, we see a strong decline in their reputations.
You might say that these results are naturally biased based on our survey sample. However, we don’t ask universities to distribute surveys like other rankings providers do (we believe that such an approach would be very open to abuse). Instead, we contact millions of cited academics who have published in the last five years, sourced from our independent contact database. This means we ask scholars to participate without regard for whether their universities are ranked or not. In this sense, the reputation results are a realistic reflection of all universities.
We have looked at this from a longitudinal perspective to determine if dropping out of the World University Rankings subsequently leads to a fall in the reputation rankings. Universities willingly submit data to THE every year to participate in our rankings; if they don’t submit data, we won’t rank them (we believe this is part of being a responsible ranker). Fortunately, we don’t see many universities deciding to drop out of the WUR – but, where they have, we have seen some evidence that their reputation ranks have fallen. For instance, the 12 universities that dropped out of the WUR between 2017 and 2020 each declined by an average of 215 places in the World Reputation Rankings within three years of leaving.
A healthy reputation attracts students and faculty, secures funding and improves graduate employment prospects, which in turn enhance the institution’s prestige and global influence. And while a good standing comes from many factors, when taking all the data into account there is clearly a link between participating in THE’s rankings and maintaining a healthy reputation.
David Watkins is managing director of data science and Mark Caddow is a senior data scientist, both at Times Higher Education.
To participate in our World University Rankings 2025, email profilerankings@timeshighereducation.com. The data portal for WUR 2025 closes on 30 March. To participate in our Impact Rankings, email impact@timeshighereducation.com.
