Time Higher Education (THE) have published the latest edition of their Impact Rankings. These assess progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) declared by the United Nations. Progress is measured by research on topics related to the goals and a variety of programmes and policies.
For example, SDG 1, No Poverty, is measured by publication and citations of papers related to poverty, papers co-authored with low or lower-middle income countries, poor students receiving financial aid, and university and community anti-poverty programmes.
There have been several changes in the data required. For SDG 10, reduced Inequalities, newly settled refugees have been added to the list of under-represented groups. For SDG 17, Partnerships for the Goals, there are two new indicators, dedicated courses on sustainability and dedicated outreach activities.
The number of universities in the Impact Rankings has increased and there are now 1406 institutions compared to 1118 last year and 768 in 2020.
THE have said that because of these changes and the influx of new universities, year to year comparisons should be avoided.
The top five universities in the overall ranking this year are:
- Western Sydney University, Australia
- Arizona State University, USA
- Western University, Canada
4= King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
4= Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Source