Similar to THE Young University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings also form a separate ranking within the internationally acclaimed Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The THE World Reputation Rankings assess universities around the world through its international reputation in research and teaching. According to the British magazine ” Times Higher Education “, it is the world’s largest survey of academic reputation among selected scientists. Since 2011, students have had the opportunity to get an overview of the 100 most renowned universities worldwide.

According to THE, universities today have to operate in a highly competitive global education market, where reputation is becoming an increasingly important influencing factor. For this reason, the editors of the British magazine decided to develop a new ranking. Because the good reputation of a university can help it to get more funding, attract more economic investments and attract the best students and scientists to the university.

Methodology of the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings

On behalf of THE, Elsevier, a leading global provider of scientific and technical information, conducts an annual survey of more than 10,000 academics from over 130 countries.

In the THE World Reputation Rankings, academics from the following fields are surveyed:

• Arts and Humanities
• Business and Economics
• Clinical and Health
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Life sciences
• Physical sciences
• Social sciences

The selected scientists can give an assessment of which universities they consider to be the best institutions in their field worldwide. To this end, they can name up to 15 universities for the areas of research and teaching, both for their own country and in a global comparison.

For THE World Reputation Rankings, the voting results in the two categories of research and teaching are combined and weighted in a ratio of 2: 1. When allocating the list places, the decisive factor is how often a university was named in the respective department. This means that the university with the most votes receives 100 percent. This in turn serves as a benchmark for the evaluation of the other institutions.

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings provide an overview of the 100 most respected universities worldwide. However, THE only lists the best 50 universities individually, as the deviations between the institutions are sometimes too small to be hierarchical. The allocation of places 51-100 is done in increments and the corresponding universities are listed alphabetically.

Excerpt from the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings

The top 10

• 1st place: Harvard University (USA)
• 2nd place: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
• 3rd place: Stanford University (USA)
• 4th place: University of Cambridge (GB)
• 5th place: University of Oxford (GB)
• 6th place: University of California Berkeley (USA)
• 7th place: Princeton University (USA)
• 8th place: Yale University (USA)
• Place (=) 9: University of Chicago (USA)
• Place (=) 9: University of California Los Angeles (USA)

Our partner universities in the top 100

• 31st place: University of California San Diego (USA)
• 33rd place: University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA)
• Place (=) 47: University of California Davis (USA)
• Place (=) 47: University of Melbourne (Australia)
• 51-60: University of Minnesota (USA)
• Seats 61-70: University of California Santa Barbara (USA)
• Seats 81-90: Fudan University (China)
• Seats 91-100: Boston University (USA)

Evaluation of THE World Reputation Rankings

In contrast to other rankings, in which the reputation of universities is only one of many evaluation criteria, prospective students can quickly and easily find out about the reputation of universities through THE World Reputation Rankings.

However, the survey only took place among selected scientists who are leaders in their field. According to THE information, the selection of persons should be based on data from the United Nations. This is to ensure that the selection of researchers approximately corresponds to the geographical distribution of scientists across the various nations. Nevertheless, it is difficult to draw general conclusions about the image of a university. For example, the student’s point of view is not taken into account.

In addition, reputation measurements in particular are often not considered to be particularly meaningful because they are based on subjective assessments. Critics also complain that the researchers surveyed usually name the institutions they know, and that are mostly the large and established universities.

Despite all this, the image of universities is a certificate of quality, not only for representatives from business and politics, but also for those interested in studying. The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings can therefore be of great help when it comes to studying abroad – especially for Masters and PhD students who place great value on the judgment of the scientific community in general.