By Ruth A Pagell*
(26 Nov 2024) When the new Singapore Management University hired me as its first University Librarian, I tried to draft a strategic plan before officially starting work. I always had data for US libraries, such as detailed library acquisition data found in the Library and Book Trade Almanac (Bayer; see notes). I published an article on benchmarking business school libraries compared to their university rankings (Pagell & Lusk). Being able to benchmark would have helped in setting a realistic timeline for completing the new library project.
Part One of this article is a more positive spin on rankings. Part Two includes updates from THE and QS, their commercial activities, and takeaways from webinars I attended.
PART 1: A POSITIVE OVERVIEW OF RANKINGS
Top universities may not need the rankings. Three-fourths (75%) of the top 200 universities in THE-QS’ first ranking (2004) are in the top 200 today. Young universities and the thousands of universities that will never be in the top tiers should find rankings useful if used strategically. Some universities and countries lack the infrastructure to conduct their statistical analysis. Users of rankings need to dig deeper than their overall world rank. There are many more rankings than the big three, THE, QS, and ARWU, that may have more relevant metrics. IREG provides an inventory of approved rankings including national rankings.
In looking for articles to reinforce my position that rankings are useful, I found a report for the EUA-European University Association (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, Zhang ) Although written ten years ago, the report includes positive uses of university rankings. At that time, higher education had become a global industry. There needed to be methodologies for cross-border comparisons. The primary external users of rankings include governments, national education authorities, and international students. Internally, the underlying bibliometric data are used for promotion and hiring. The EUA report noted ongoing concerns about the content, presentation, and the uses by internal leadership. It concluded that rankings should not be used to allocate resources, nor should the statistical performance data be manipulated to improve rankings.
Ten years later, I read a report by Angel Calderon in University World News that examines the current relevance of rankings. Calderon states that participation in THE Impact Rankings, QS Sustainable Rankings, and regional rankings “is for the ability to have benchmark data against peers, but also to showcase progress against Sustainable Development Goals, their institutional mission, and government policy objectives.” He also states that the data can be used as a roadmap for improvement for government, civil society, and the market. There is no perfect set of metrics, but having consistent data is essential for universities in growing markets that do not have national systems (Calderon 2024).
Part 2:BEYOND THE RANKINGS for THE and QS
Hazelkorn and Altbach’s latest article highlights the companies as profit centers. Ruth’s Ranking reported on the business of rankings in two previous articles (RR32, RR 50). Since it was time for an update on THE’s 2025 World University Rankings and the QS Asia Rankings, I “attended” a webinar from each company to see what they tell or sell to the universities in their rankings. What is not apparent to the casual user is that these for-profit ranking companies have multiple purposes, the rankings being their public faces. Rankings do not produce themselves. They require staff to manipulate and present the data and market their products. Companies offer fee-based solutions to pay for the rankings and help universities improve their rankings.
THE World Rankings 2025
THE released its 2025 World Rankings in October 2024. Universities choose to opt into THE rankings. Despite criticisms of the rankings, the 2025 list has 185 new universities. THE Impact Rankings, released in June 2024, provide a refreshing change from the names that consistently appear in the World’s top 10 lists. It is an example of a positive use of rankings and an opportunity for universities to get their names on the world stage. Universities from THE Impact Rankings may appear on the World Rankings under Reporter status. For example, half of India’s reporters are from THE Impact Rankings. Table 1 compares the top 10 universities in THE Impact Rankings with World Rankings and the top countries in the Impact and World rankings.
THE is introducing two new rankings. In conjunction with Schmidt Science Fellows, it is releasing a ranking on Interdisciplinary Science (Ellis). There is already controversy over the ranking, calling it a poor measure of the quality of research and teaching (Daley & Hantrais). The other ranking due for release before the end of 2024 is Online Learning (New Online).
In addition to presenting the rankings, THE provides free webinars, paid conferences in different regions, and consultancy services. I attended the 2025 World University Master Class APEC Region webinar (Banette). This THE webinar primarily focused on clarifying the content of the world rankings. Much of the webinar explained the various metrics used by THE, such as normalization by region or discipline. It clarified the methodology for the reputation survey, which is invitation only. When using THE rankings, most of the individual metrics are not transparent.
I never had paid attention to the banner at the top of the screen. There is a category of solutions, home to their fee-based consultancy services.
Universities see their own data but must pay to see comparison data. THE offers services that will help universities improve their ranking positions.
QS Regional Rankings – Asia 2025
RR 58 introduced QS’ change in regional rankings, adding rankings by subcontinent. The number of Asian universities in the Asian Rankings increased from 855 to 986 and in the World Rankings from 486 to 500.
QS uses metrics that are modified from the World rankings for the individual regional rankings as seen in the results in Table 2 above.
The QS webinar I attended, “Building Brilliance – Reputation. How top universities shape their global reputation”, was designed to lay the groundwork for helping universities improve their reputation. The content reminded me of an introductory MBA class in strategic planning. QS allows researchers to contact colleagues to participate in its Reputation Rankings. It is possible to rank universities by reputation score in the World Rankings. Click here for QS solutions catalog: https://www.qs.com/solutions-catalogue/
CONCLUSION: People like rankings, and there are always new rankings. One of the criticisms of the university rankings is that they reflect part of the scope of a university’s work. It may be necessary to look at more than one ranking. An example is the World’s Most Innovative Countries from the Visual Capitalist. The 2024 edition covered 133 countries and used 78 indicators. Switzerland was number one, the United States third, Singapore fourth, and China eleventh. The topics include Knowledge-intensive employment, University-Industry R&D collaboration, and Business Sophistication (Lu & Smith). Visual Capitalist is in the ranking business. In addition to ranking the most innovative countries, they rank the countries that believe in aliens the most. The U.S. Chronicle of Higher Education posted a ranking, with questionable methodology, on U.S. college presidents, with Harvard fifth from the bottom (Kelderman).
In 2017 Altbech and Hazelkorn suggested that most universities should quit the rankings “because they are misused”. The landscape has changed. In 2017 THE had 981 ranked universities from 79 countries. Today’s rankings include over 2800 universities from 115 countries. Rankings are not inherently good or bad. it is elitist to write off all rankings.
NOTES: When I started purchasing databases in Singapore, vendors wanted to charge me twice as much as I had been paying in the US for about ten percent of the number of students in the student body. I did not pay those prices. Knowing the prices of materials found in the Library Book Trade Almanac™ is helpful. (Bayer).
Library Book Trade Almanac TM Formerly The Bowker Annual
This book, only available in print, has been published since 1955. The target audience is North American libraries. It includes some international information such as international reports, including IFLA, 38 pages of English language book prizes, and international library and regional library associations. A key section is Book Trade Research and Statistics. It has an extensive list of the average price of books, e-books, and college books by subject. It would be useful for libraries in other countries to look at this data at least once to compare it to what they are paying to the North American prices.
RESOURCES
Previous RR:
Ruth’s Rankings 32: The Business of Rankings – Show Me the Money (22 Jan 2018). https://librarylearningspace.com/ruths-rankings-32-business-rankings-show-money/
Ruth’s Rankings 50: The Business of Rankings Updated (11 Apr 2022) https://librarylearningspace.com/ruths-rankings-50-the-business-of-rankings-updated/
Ruth’s Rankings 60 Addendum for details on the ranking released in 2023. https://librarylearningspace.com/rr-60-retrospective-addendum-methodologies-indicators-rankings-and-countries/
Cited Works:
Altbech, P.G. & Hazelkorn, E. (8 Jan 2017). “Why most universities should quit the ranking game.” University World News.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20170105122700949
Banette D. ( Oct 2024). The 2025 World University Rankings Masterclass https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/2024_data_masterclass_slides_and_consultancy_apac.pdf
Bayer, K. (2024). Library and Book Trade Almanac TM, formerly The Bowker Annual. 69th ed. Information Today
Calderon, A. ( 15 June 2025)Global HE rankings: Why do they continue to be relevant? University World News https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20240615080410851
Daley, C. & Hantrais, L. (17 Jan 2024). A ranking for interdisciplinarity is a poor measure for the quality of research and teaching in universities, LSE Blog, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2024/01/17/a-ranking-for-interdisciplinarity-is-a-poor-measure-for-the-quality-of-research-and-teaching-in-universities/
Ellis, R. (7 Nov 2024). Record participation for new interdisciplinary Science Rankings. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/record-participation-new-interdisciplinary-science-rankings
Hazelkorn, E. & Altbach, P.G. (15 Sep 2024). Caveat Emptor: Higher Education Rankings as Profit Centers. International Higher Education; 120. https://ihe.bc.edu/pub/6nf0v9ku/release/1
Hazelkorn, E., Loukkola, T. & Zhang, T. (2014). Rankings in Institutional Strategies and Processes: Impact or Illusion? EUA Publications 1024 https://www.eua.eu/publications/reports/rankings-in-institutional-strategies-and-processes-impact-or-illusion.html
Kelderman, E. (29 Oct 024). Should College Presidents be ranked? The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/should-college-presidents-be-ranked
Lu, M. (4 Oct 2024). Ranked: The World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2024. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-most-innovative-countries-in-2024/
New Online Learning Rankings to be launched by Times Higher Education (22 Nov 2023). https://www.timeshighereducation.com/press-releases/new-online-learning-rankings-be-launched-times-higher-education
Pagell, R.A. & Lusk, E. J. (2002). Benchmarketing Academic Business School Libraries Relative to Their Business School Rankings Relative to their Business School Rankings. Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship. 3-33. https://doi.org/10.1300/J109v07n04_02
GUIDELINES ON USING RANKINGS – Users of rankings have a responsibility to understand the rankings they are using:
CWTS Leiden Responsible Use https://www.leidenranking.com/information/responsibleuse
IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence (2023)
https://ireg-observatory.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IREG-guidelines2023.pdf
A list of Ruth’s Rankings and News Updates is here.
*Ruth A. Pagell is an emeritus faculty librarian at Emory University. After working at Emory, she was the founding librarian of the Li Ka Shing Library at Singapore Management University and then adjunct faculty [teaching] in the Library and Information Science Program at the University of Hawaii. She has written and spoken extensively on various aspects of librarianship, including contributing articles to ACCESS – https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3238-9674
