There are many global rankings organizations. These include magazines, newspapers, websites, higher education institutions and governments. Some rankings organizations specialize in international rankings, others in national or regional rankings, and a few do both. For an overview of seven major rankings organizations, download the quick guide. opens in new tab/window
Ranking methodologies rely on data inputs from a range of external resources. These resources often include university and researcher data, relevant data on human resources, student administration, finances, and data from reputation surveys — each varying based on a rankings' niche and focus.
In this guide, we focus on the bibliometrics used by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS)
opens in new tab/window World University Rankings (WUR). For a broader look at university rankings, please visit Guide to University Rankings .
One dataset most rankers use as part of their methodologies is bibliometric data. This data is associated with the documents or publications that researchers publish to share their findings. You can glean several data points and insights from bibliometric datasets, some of which are detailed below:
Number of citations received by publications from researchers at an institution. Number of publications produced by researchers at an institution.Research collaboration profiles, particularly international collaboration, of researchers and institutions.
Researchers’ institutional affiliation.By using bibliometric datasets from a curated and authoritative source, rankers get a quantitative, consistent and comparable look at each university's research output to make it easier to compare them.
Understanding and obtaining the actual bibliometric data used to calculate the rankings is difficult. Because of this, if you are developing or executing a rankings strategy for your institution, you may find yourself creating proxies based on your best estimates, limiting the strategic value.
Two ways to help address this challenge are:
Understand the methodology behind the ranking and pay attention to changes annually. Remove the need for manual curation and development of proxy indicators.In this guide, we first discuss the QS World University Rankings methodology and bring further transparency to the bibliometrics underpinning them. Then, we will discuss ways to overcome the need for proxies and manual curation.
opens in new tab/window — more commonly referred to as QS — ranking methodology
opens in new tab/window evaluates universities through nine metrics, with several adjustments introduced in the 2024 ranking as noted below:
Academic reputation 30% (reduced by 10% in 2024 rankings) Citations per faculty 20% Employer reputation 15% (increased by 5% in 2024 rankings) Faculty students 10% (reduced by 10% in 2024 rankings) International students 5% International faculty 5% International Research Network 5% (introduced in 2024 rankings) Employment Outcomes 5% (introduced in 2024 rankings) Sustainability 5% (introduced in 2024 rankings)
Scopus contributes the bibliometric data for this part of the QS ranking. To calculate the Citations per Faculty metric, QS divides the Normalized Total Citation Count by the number of Faculty reported by each institution, which is based on the Scholarly Outputs considered by QS. QS uses a five-year publication window for Scholarly Outputs and a six-year citation window, and the Normalized Total Citation Count is the arithmetic sum of the Citation Count in each faculty area, normalized per faculty area and an institution's country. This aims to ensure differences in publication and citation patterns across each faculty area are accounted for.
According to QS, the
IRN Index reflects the ability of institutions to diversify the geography of their international research network by establishing sustainable research partnerships with other higher education institutions.
It is an indicator of the strength and diversity of an institution’s research network as determined by sustainable research partnerships with international higher education institutions. Sustainable research partnerships are those that have resulted in three or more publications in the period considered, which then determines the subset of Scopus® publications considered in the metric calculation.
QS also applies the QS affiliation cap to identify the publications considered. This is designed to help prevent highly cited material produced by very large research groups from conferring too much credit on institutions that may have only contributed a small amount to the work. The cap varies per Faculty Area in order to ensure no more than 0.1% of research is excluded in a given field.
The IRN makes up 5% of the overall QS World University Rankings score. The calculation starts with the following formula:
IRN Index = L/ln(P)
Which divides the distinct count of international Locations (L) listed in considered publications by the natural logarithm of the distinct count of international Partners (P) (higher education institutions) in those locations.
The IRN Index is normalized by each of the five QS Faculty areas with each faculty area value, taken singularly, and also scaled and averaged. The total average value is again scaled to produce the final IRN indicator score.
You can find more information about the IRN on the QS support site here
All of the research metrics used by QS for every QS ranking in each ranking cycle are calculated using data from Scopus®, which Elsevier extracts at the beginning of each year. This extract is therefore used for the QS World University Rankings (WUR) and every other ranking in the cycle following the WUR.
