The Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE WUR) is one of the leading global university rankings published annually by Times Higher Education. It assesses and ranks thousands of universities worldwide on the basis of criteria such as teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. The ranking has been published since 2004 and provide an important indicator for the performance of universities on an international level.

The QS Ranking has been published since 2004 by QS Quacquarelli Symonds. It is largely based on reputation surveys among researchers and in industry. It also includes criteria such as internationalization, citations, teaching and sustainability.

The Shanghai Ranking or Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is a renowned university ranking published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. It was first published in 2003 and is one of the oldest and most influential rankings. The methodology of the Shanghai Ranking mainly focuses on universities’ research output. It considers indicators such as the number of Nobel Prize and Field Medal winners among alumni and staff, the number of most-frequently cited researchers in various fields as well as the number of publications in renowned academic journals.

The Shanghai subject ranking, officially known as the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS), has been published on an annual basis by  Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 2009. A total of 55 individual subjects are assessed from the fields of natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences on the basis of various indicators.

The CWTS Leiden Ranking is published annually by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. It was first published in 2007 and is a specific ranking that focuses on the scientific research output of universities. The methodology of the CWTS Leiden Rankings is mainly based on bibliometric indicators that are extracted from databases via scientific publications and citations. The indicators include the number of scientific publications, citations per article, the proportion of scientific publications produced during international collaboration and the proportion of scientific publications published in renowned journals.

The “Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities”, generally known as the NTU Ranking, has been published by the National Taiwan University since 2007. This ranking system serves to evaluate the academic performance of universities. The indicators it uses are designed in such a way as to allow comparisons of the quality and the quantity of scientific publications of each university. By analyzing the long-term performance and current research activities, the aim is to generate a more objective assessment of a university’s research.

The “U.S. News & World Report Ranking” is a university ranking published by the US magazine “U.S. News & World Report”. It evaluates universities in the USA and also some international universities. The ranking uses various factors such as reputation, publications, impact of citations and international collaborations in order to evaluate the performance of universities.

The Times Higher Education Impact Ranking evaluates universities using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. It uses carefully calibrated indicators to generate a comprehensive and balanced comparison in four main areas: Research, stewardship, public relations and teaching.