The QS World University Rankings, the most comprehensive ranking of its kind, shines a light on the best institutions from across the world, supporting our mission of enabling motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfil their potential through educational achievement, international mobility, and career development.
For this 20th edition, as planned, we have significantly evolved our methodology. These changes reflect the shifts in higher education that have occurred over the past two decades, such as the growing importance of sustainability, employability, and research collaborations. We have introduced three new indicators (see Table) and rebalanced the weights for other indicators. Sustainability, employability, and international research collaboration are the dimensions that are either reinforced or introduced for the first time. We did not make these changes lightly and believe that they reflect the collective intelligence of the sector, and the changing priorities of students. This evolution of our rankings helps students identify institutions that excel in the areas that matter to them.
| Performances Lenses | 2024 Edition Weights | Change from previous editions |
| Academic Reputation | 30% | 10% deducted |
| Employer Reputation | 15% | 5% added |
| Faculty Student Ratio | 10% | 10% deducted |
| Citations per Faculty | 20% | No change |
| International Faculty Ratio | 5% | No change |
| International Student Ratio | 5% | No change |
| International Research Network | 5% | New |
| Employment Outcomes | 5% | New |
| Sustainability | 5% | New |
To be eligible for this ranking, institutions must fulfil our Eligibility Criteria.
If an institution is eligible, it then must pass the following 3 thresholds to be analysed as part of the sample. Note that "being analysed" does not necessarily mean "being published" (see Inclusion Criteria).
| 1 | New Entrants | A new entrant should be in the global Top 20% in Academic Reputation.*1 |
| 2 | Paper Threshold |
For the QS World University Rankings, an institution should have at least 100 papers indexed by Scopus and published over a 5-year window. Only papers of relevant paper types and after affiliation cap is applied are considered. |
| 3 | Small Size |
If an institution is of small size (fewer than 5,000 students), then we look at the performance in Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation and Citations per Faculty. More specifically, we need at least one of the following scenarios to be met for inclusion in the last few editions:
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*1 Note that the 5-year cohort of nominations is subject to stringent validation techniques.