THE World University Rankings judges research-intensive universities across all of their core missions. The table is based on 13 performance indicators grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer).

TEACHING (the learning environment) 30%

Reputation survey (15%) - The most recent Academic Reputation Survey (run annually) that underpins this category was carried out between November 2019 and February 2020 . The responses were statistically representative of the geographical and subject mix of academics globally. The 2020 data are combined with the results of the 2019 survey, giving more than  22,000 responses.

Staff-to-student ratio (4.5%)

Doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio (2.25%)

Doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio (6%)

Institutional income (2.25%) - Institutional income is scaled against academic staff numbers and normalised for purchasing-power parity (PPP).

RESEARCH (volume, income and reputation) 30%

Reputation survey (18%) – This indicator looks at university’s reputation for research excellence among its peers and is based on the responses to annual Academic Reputation Survey.

Research income (6%) - Research income is scaled against academic staff numbers and adjusted for purchasing-power parity (PPP).

Research productivity (6%) - THE counts the number of papers published in the academic journals indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database per scholar, scaled for institutional size and normalised for subject. Starting from last year, credit was given for papers that are published in subjects where a university delcares no staff.

CITATIONS (research influence) 30%

THE examines research influence by capturing the average number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally. In 2020 THE bibliometric data supplier Elsevier examined more than 86 million citations to 13.6 million journal articles, articles reviews, conference proceedings, books and book chapters published over five years. The data include  more than 24,000 academic journals indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database and all indexed publications between 2015 and 2019. Citations to these publications made in the six years from 2015 to 2020 are also collected.

INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK (staff, students, research) 7.5%

International-to-domestic-student ratio (2.5%)

International-to-domestic-staff ratio (2.5%)

International collaboration (2.5%) - The proportion of a university’s total research journal publications that have at least one international co-author is calculated.

INDUSTRY INCOME (knowledge transfer) 2.5%

This category seeks to capture knowledge-transfer activity by looking at how much research income an institution earns from industry (adjusted for PPP), scaled against the number of academic staff it employs.