Regional research reputation (12.5%):

- This indicator reflects the aggregation of the most recent five years of results of the Academic Reputation Survey for the best universities for research in the region; regions were determined based on the United Nations definition.

- This regional indicator significantly increased the international diversity of the rankings, since it focused on measuring academics’ opinions of other universities within their region.

- The U.S. News rankings are the only global rankings to use this indicator, and the 2021 edition marks the seventh year of its inclusion.

Publications (10%):

- This is a measure of the overall research productivity of a university, based on the total number of scholarly papers – reviews, articles and notes – that contain affiliations to a university and are published in high-quality, impactful journals. This indicator is closely linked to the university’s size.

- It is also influenced by the university’s discipline focus, since some disciplines, particularly medicine, publish more than others.

Books (2.5%):

- Books are an important medium of publication for scholarly research, particularly in the social sciences and arts and humanities.

- The ranking indicator provides a useful supplement to the data on articles and better represents universities that have a focus on social sciences and arts and humanities.

Conferences (2.5%): 

- Academic conferences are an important venue for scholarly communication, particularly in disciplines tied to engineering and computer science.

- The formal publication of conference proceedings can represent genuine research breakthroughs in certain fields that may not have been documented or published elsewhere.

Normalized citation impact (10%):

- The total number of citations per paper represents the overall impact of the research of the university and is independent of the university’s size or age; the value is normalized to overcome differences in research area, the paper’s publication year and publication type.

Total citations (7.5%):

- This indicator measures how influential the university has been on the global research community.

- It is determined by multiplying the publications ranking factor by the normalized citation impact factor.

- Total citations have been normalized to overcome differences in research area, publication year of the paper and publication type.

Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited (12.5%):

- This indicator reflects the number of papers that have been assigned as being in the top 10% of the most highly cited papers in the world for their respective fields.

- Each paper is given a percentile score that represents where it falls, in terms of citation rank, compared with similar papers – those with the same publication year, subject and document type.

Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited (10%):

- This indicator is the percentage of a university’s total papers that are among the top 10% of the most highly cited papers in the world – per field and publication year.

- It is a measure of the amount of excellent research the university produces and is independent of the university’s size.

Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited (12.5%):

- This indicator reflects the number of papers that have been assigned as being in the top 10% of the most highly cited papers in the world for their respective fields.

- Each paper is given a percentile score that represents where it falls, in terms of citation rank, compared with similar papers – those with the same publication year, subject and document type.

International collaboration – relative to country (5%):

- This indicator is the proportion of the institution’s total papers that contain international co-authors divided by the proportion of internationally co-authored papers for the country that the university is in.

- It shows how international the research papers are compared with the country in which the institution is based.

International collaboration (5%):

- This indicator is the proportion of the institution’s total papers that contain international co-authors and is another measure of quality.

Classification of previous years

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