World University Rankings 2021 by subject: arts and humanities methodology

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 arts and humanities subject ranking includes a range of narrower subject areas.

The subjects used to create this ranking are:

• Art, performing arts and design
• Languages, literature and linguistics
• History, philosophy and theology
• Architecture
• Archaeology

Different weights and measures

The subject tables employ the same range of 13 performance indicators used in the overall World University Rankings 2021, brought together with scores provided under five categories.

However, the overall methodology is carefully recalibrated for each subject, with the weightings changed to suit the individual fields.

The weightings for the arts and humanities ranking are:

• Teaching: the learning environment
  37.4 per cent 
• Research: volume, income and reputation
  37.6 per cent 
• Citations: research influence
  15 per cent 
• International outlook: staff, students and research
  7.5 per cent 
• Industry income: innovation
  2.5 per cent

Criteria

Two criteria determine eligibility for the THE subject rankings: a publication threshold by discipline and an academic staff* threshold by discipline.

No institution can be included in the overall World University Rankings unless it has published a minimum of 1,000 relevant publications over the five years that we examine.

For the 11 subject tables, the publication thresholds are set differently. For arts and humanities, the threshold drops to 250 papers published in this discipline over the past five years.

There is also an academic staff criterion. Prior to the 2019 subject rankings, we expected an institution to have at least 5 per cent of its academic staff working in the arts and humanities discipline in order to include it in the subject table.

Since the 2019 subject rankings, we have made a small adjustment to the staff eligibility criterion. An institution needs a minimum proportion or number of staff in this discipline to be included in the subject ranking.

For arts and humanities, we expect an institution to have at least 5 per cent of its academic staff or at least 50 academic staff members in the discipline.

*Academic staff is defined as the full-time equivalent number of staff employed in an academic post, for example, lecturer, reader, professor.