The Impact Rankings 2025 will be published?in late June.

The?51³Ô¹Ï?Impact Rankings are the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations¡¯ Sustainable Development Goals. We?use carefully calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons on sustainability across four broad areas:?research,?stewardship,?outreach?and?teaching.

Discover how universities are ranked, the indicators are used, and why the?THE?Impact Rankings are trusted benchmarks for global?university performance on sustainability.

Key criteria for?51³Ô¹Ï?Impact Rankings

Four core pillars of evaluation

1. Research:?the most obvious and traditional way that a university might help deliver the SDGs is by creating research in relevant topics.

2. Stewardship:?universities are custodians of significant resources; not just physical resources but also their employees, faculty and students. How they act as stewards is one of the key factors in delivering the SDGs.

51³Ô¹Ï

3. Outreach:?place is critical in higher education, and the work that universities do with their local, regional, national and international communities is another key way that they can be more sustainable.

4. Teaching:?teaching plays a critical role, both in ensuring that there are enough skilled practitioners to deliver on the SDGs, and in making sure that all alumni take forward the key lessons of sustainability into their future careers.

51³Ô¹Ï

Which SDGs are included?

There are 17 UN SDGs, and we evaluate university performance on all of them:

• SDG 1 ¨C?no poverty
• SDG 2 ¨C?zero hunger
• SDG 3 ¨C?good health and well-being
• SDG 4 ¨C?quality education
• SDG 5 ¨C?gender equality
• SDG 6 ¨C?clean water and sanitation
• SDG 7 ¨C?affordable and clean energy
• SDG 8 ¨C?decent work and economic growth
• SDG 9 ¨C?industry, innovation and infrastructure
• SDG 10 ¨C?reduced inequalities
• SDG 11 ¨C?sustainable cities and communities
• SDG 12 ¨C?responsible consumption and production
• SDG 13 ¨C?climate action
• SDG 14 ¨C?life below water
• SDG 15 ¨C?life on land
• SDG 16 ¨C?peace, justice and strong institutions
• SDG 17 ¨C?partnerships for the goals

Universities can submit data on as many of these SDGs as they are able. Each SDG has a?series of metrics that are used to evaluate the performance of?the university in?that SDG.

Any university that provides data on SDG 17 and at least three other SDGs is included in?the overall Impact Rankings table.

As well as the overall ranking, we also publish the results of each individual SDG in 17 separate tables.

How are the Impact Rankings created?

Metrics included for each SDG

Each?SDG ranking is based on a range of bespoke indicators and metrics,?related to the theme of the goal.

There are three categories of metrics within each SDG:

1. Research metrics are derived from data supplied by Elsevier. For each SDG, a specific query has been created that narrows the scope of the metric to papers relevant to that SDG. This is supplemented by publications identified by artificial intelligence. As with the World University Rankings, we are using a five?year window between 2019 and 2023. The only exception is the metric on?patents that cite research under SDG?9, which relates to?the time frame in which the patents were published rather than the time frame of the research itself. The metrics chosen for the bibliometrics differ by SDG and there are always at least two bibliometric measures used.

2. Continuous metrics?measure contributions to impact that vary continually across a range ¨C for example, the number of graduates with a health-related degree. These are usually normalised to the size of the institution.

51³Ô¹Ï

3. When we ask about policies and initiatives ¨C for example, the existence of mentoring programmes ¨C our metrics require universities to provide?evidence?to support their claims. In these cases, we give credit for the evidence, and for the evidence being public. These metrics are not usually size-normalised.?Evidence is evaluated against a set of criteria, and decisions are cross-validated where there is uncertainty. Evidence need not be exhaustive ¨C we are looking for examples that demonstrate best practice at the institutions concerned.

51³Ô¹Ï

The?broad indicators?for the 17 SDGs are?listed below.?The detailed metrics are outlined in the full methodology document at the bottom of this page. In general, the data used refer to the closest academic year to January to December 2023.

SDG 1: no poverty?

• Research on poverty (27%)
• Proportion of students receiving financial aid (27%)
• University anti-poverty programmes (23%)
• Community anti-poverty programmes (23%)

SDG 2:?zero hunger

• Research related to hunger (27%)
• Campus food waste?(15.4%)
• Student hunger (19.2%)
• Proportion of graduates in food sustainability (19.2%)
• National hunger (19.2%)

SDG 3:?good health and well-being

• Research on health and well-being (27%)
• Proportion of?health graduates (34.6%)
• Collaborations and health services (38.4%)

SDG 4: quality education

• Research on?early years and lifelong learning education (27%)
• Proportion of?graduates with a teaching qualification (15.4%)
• Lifelong learning measures (26.8%)
• Proportion of first-generation students?(30.8%)

SDG 5: gender equality??

• Research on the study of gender equality?(27%)
• Proportion of first-generation female students (15.4%)
• Student access measures?(15.4%)
• Proportion of senior?female?academics (15.4%)
• Proportion of women receiving degrees (11.5%)
• Women's progress measures (15.3%)

SDG 6: clean water and sanitation

• Research on?clean water and sanitation (27%)
• Water consumption?(19%)
• Water care (23%)
• Water reuse (12%)
• Water in the community (19%)

SDG 7:?affordable and clean energy

• Research on?affordable and clean energy (27%)
• Clean energy measures?(23%)
• Energy use?(17%)
• Energy and?the community (23%)
• Low-carbon energy use (10%)

SDG 8:?decent work and economic growth

• Research on?economic growth and employment?(27%)
• Employment practices?(19.6%)
• Expenditure per employee (15.4%)
• Proportion of students taking work placements?(19%)
• Proportion of?employees?on secure contracts (19%)

SDG 9:?industry, innovation and infrastructure

• Research on?industry, innovation and infrastructure (11.6%)
• Patents?(15.4%)
• University spin-offs?(34.6%)
• Research income from industry (38.4%)

SDG 10:?reduced inequalities

• Research on?reduced inequalities?(27%)
• First-generation students?(15.5%)
• Students from developing countries (15.5%)
• Proportion of students and staff with disabilities (23%)
• Measures against discrimination (19%)

SDG 11:?sustainable cities and communities

• Research on?sustainable cities and communities?(27%)
• Support of arts and heritage?(22.6%)
• Expenditure on arts and heritage (15.3%)
• Sustainable practices (35.1%)

SDG 12:?responsible consumption and production?

• Research on?responsible consumption and production (27%)
• Operational?measures?(26.7%)
• Proportion of recycled waste?(27%)
• Publication of a sustainability report (19.3%)

SDG 13:?climate action

• Research on?climate action (27%)
• Low-carbon energy use?(27%)
• Environmental education measures (23%)
• Carbon neutrality (23%)

SDG 14:?life below water

• Research on?life below water (27%)
• Education related to aquatic ecosystems (15.3%)
• Supporting aquatic ecosystems?(19.4%)
• Water-sensitive waste disposal (19.3%)
• Maintaining a local ecosystem (19%)

SDG 15:?life on land

• Research on?life on land (27%)
• Education related to land ecosystems?(23%)
• Supporting land ecosystems through action?(27%)
• Land-sensitive waste-disposal?(23%)

SDG 16:?peace, justice and strong institutions

• Research on?peace and justice (27%)
• University governance?measures?(26.6%)
• Working with government (23.2%)
• Proportion of graduates in law and civil enforcement 23.2%

SDG 17:?partnerships for the goals

• Research?relating to the SDGs or with lower- or lower-middle-income countries?(27.1%)
• Relationships to support the goals?(18.5%)
• Publication of SDG reports (27.2%)
• Education on the SDGs (27.2%)

Producing the overall ranking

A university¡¯s?total score in a given year is calculated by combining its score in SDG?17 with its best three results on the remaining 16 SDGs. SDG?17 accounts for 22?per cent of the?total score, while the other SDGs each carry a weighting of 26?per cent. This means that different universities are scored based on a different set of SDGs, depending on their focus.?The score for the overall ranking is an average of the past two years¡¯ total scores.

The score from each SDG is scaled so that the highest score in each SDG in the overall calculation is 100 and the lowest score is 0. This is to adjust for minor differences in the scoring range in each SDG and to ensure that universities are treated equitably whichever SDGs they have provided data for.?We use these scaled scores to determine which SDGs a?university has performed in most strongly; they may not be the SDGs in which the university is ranked highest or has scored highest based on unscaled scores.

Inclusion criteria for Impact Rankings

The ranking is open to any university that teaches at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Although research activities form part of the method?ology, there is no?minimum research requirement for participation.

THE?reserves the right to exclude universities that it believes have falsified data, or are no?longer in good standing.

Data collection

Institutions provide and sign off their institutional data for use in the rankings. On the rare occasions when a particular data point is not provided, we enter a value of zero.

Interpreting the results?

The Impact Rankings are inherently dynamic: they are growing rapidly each year as many more universities seek to demonstrate their commitment to delivering the SDGs by joining our database; and they allow institutions to demonstrate rapid improvement year-on-year, by introducing clear new policies, for example, or by providing clearer and more open evidence of their progress. Therefore, we expect and welcome regular change in the ranked order of institutions (and we discourage year-on-year comparisons) as universities continue to drive this urgent agenda.

How the Impact Rankings support decision-making

For students and academics

• Identify the top universities in specific?areas of sustainable development
• Understand the focus areas of each institution

For universities

• Benchmark sustainability performance against global standards
• Highlight strengths to attract international students and partnerships

The methodology was developed in conjunction with our partners??and Elsevier, and after consultation and input from individual universities, academics and sector groups.

51³Ô¹Ï

.