by Anand Kulkarni
Dr Anand Kulkarni is a higher education professional at Victoria University.
This article represents the author’s views entirely and is an abbreviated version of the article, ‘The state of the world – Impact Rankings: opinion’, published by the Campus Review on 26 April 2021.
The Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2021, released last month, continues to attract global attention. 1,117 institutions are globally ranked, compared to 768 last year. The Impact Rankings measure universities’ contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching metrics, which are both quantitative and qualitative. Evidence about how universities contribute to the SDGs through community engagement and outreach, policy advice, and best practice analysis, are all key components of the Impact Rankings. Unlike mainstream rankings that focus on traditional metrics of publications, citations and research income, the Impact Rankings are broader in scope and reflect universities’ wider missions and roles.
There are 17 SDGs ranging from addressing climate change, natural resource management, energy, sustainable cities and communities, gender and other forms of inequality, innovation and infrastructure to peace, justice, and strong institutions. For institutions to be ranked overall, they must submit on SDG 17 Partnership for the Goals, and at least three others. In addition, institutions are ranked on individual SDGs.
Of the 1,117 globally ranked institutions in the 2021 Impact Rankings, the top countries (with the number of institutions) are:
Unlike the traditional World University Rankings, Europe and the US do not figure as prominently in the Impact Rankings. Interestingly, there are only 13 Chinese universities this year compared to 9 last year, yet the number of ranked Chinese institutions in the traditional or mainstream rankings is much higher and has been growing rapidly in recent years.
Australia performs very well with 24 ranked institutions, up from 21 last year. This is a particularly good result, and also reflects high quality. Four Australian Institutions are ranked in the top 10 (University of Sydney, RMIT, La Trobe University and University of Wollongong), and 10 are in the top 50, showing the overall commitment and capabilities with respect to SDGs. It is suggested that Australia has the world’s best higher education system overall. This, in our view, could be due to its strong and inter-related teaching, learning and research, multidisciplinary capabilities, relevance to real-world issues, scale relative to population size and the fact that overwhelmingly institutions are public, lending themselves to addressing social good challenges.
When looking at individual SDG rankings for Australia (regardless of whether the institution is ranked overall), the following standout performance is observed:
Australian institutions fare well across the range of SDGs. Its strong tradition and capabilities in world-leading medical and allied fields stand out as reflected in the high numbers in SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being. In several SDGs, Australian institutions are ranked as the world’s best, while in 15 of the 17 SDGs, an Australian institution is in the top 10.
Less well ranked areas for Australian institutions, undoubtedly reflecting the choice of SDGs to submit for, are:
Arguably, these choices could suggest either less capability in these fields or less need or limited funding or simply a recognition that other institutions around the world are better placed.
Overall, the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings is more significant in the eyes of Institutions. This ranking schema addresses real-world issues and challenges facing the economy, society, and environment, and interest is expected to intensify into the future.
Anand Kulkarni
AAIR member, 2021
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