
Methodology
The AppliedHE Rankometer is a composite ranking system that combines the world’s most influential university rankings into a single measure of university reputation and quality. Instead of choosing between different ranking systems, why not include all of them in your decision-making through the beautifully simple and authoritative AppliedHE Rankometer?
Ranking Selection
The Rankometer reflects global opinions on universities as it is captured in the world’s leading university rankings. For a ranking to be selected for inclusion, it must meet the following criteria
- Activity: an edition of the ranking has been published during the preceding 12 months
- Scope: at least 1,000 universities are ranked
- Impact: among the 5 most influential rankings, as measured by Google News mentions (hits) in the international media
Based on these criteria the following rankings are selected for inclusion in the AppliedHE Rankometer: QS Quacquarelli Symonds’ World University Rankings (UK), Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (China), THE Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings (UK), CWTS Leiden University’s Leiden Ranking (Netherlands), and CSIC Cybermetrics Lab’s Webometrics Ranking Web of Universities (Spain). For further details, see the methodology page for the January 2021 Rankometer.
University Inclusion
Different rankings maintain different criteria for including a university, one of the most important ones being the “breadth” of the subjects being offered. QS and THE exclude highly specialized institutions which are only active in one subject area. To prevent these different criteria from influencing the Rankometer scores, a university must be included in the QS World University Ranking to be included in the Rankometer.
Rankometer Computation
The Rankometer computations are similar to those of golf: universities with the lowest score win. The rankings of a university in the different component rankings are added up, ordered from lowest to highest, and then assigned their Rankometer rank.
Universities which do not appear in a ranking automatically receive 1000 points.
An example calculation is included below.
Institution: Chinese University of Hong Kong
QS World University Ranking: 38th → 38 points
Shanghai ARWU: 125th → 125 points
THE World University Ranking: 49th → 49 points
Leiden Ranking: 108th → 108 points
Webometrics Ranking: 86th → 86 points
Final Rankometer score: 38 + 125 +49 + 108 + 86 = 406 points
In this case 406 points is the 54th highest score received, placing CUHK 54th in the Rankometer World University Rankings, together with the University of Southern California.
In the case of ranking ranges (such as 151-200), the average figure (in this case 175) is used as the rank of the universities ranked in the range.
The Rankometer assigns the same rank to institutions with the same Rankometer score.
Data Sources
Ranking data was taken from the official websites of the ranking publishers in June 2022.
- QS World University Rankings 2023
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2023 - 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities
https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2021 - THE World University Rankings 2022
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2022/world-ranking - CWTS Leiden Ranking 2021
https://www.leidenranking.com/ranking/2021/list
(we use the “original” PP top 10% ranking, first presented in 2011/2012 when the Leiden Ranking was launched) - Ranking Web of Universities Webometrics World (January 2021)
Download full AppliedHE Rankometer results with constituent ranking positions here.