The Lens
QS World University Rankings:
Sustainability 2024
Commentary by
Dr Ludovic Highman, Associate Professor in Higher Education Management, International Centre for Higher Education Management (ICHEM), University of Bath and Strategic Rankings Consultant, QS
Dr Drew MacFarlane, QS Rankings Manager
The increase in accessibility and dissemination of research leads to a much wider readership. It therefore provides greater evidence of impact and potential contribution to societal and economic wellbeing.
All growth is not good. The environment is necessity, not a luxury. There is such a thing as enough.” (Meadows et al., 2004).
The quote above comes from Donella Meadows, an environmental scientist and activist who was one of the early pivotal figures in championing a more sustainable future for the planet.
By 2030, there are estimated to be 380 million students studying at universities around the world. If the higher education sector were a country, it would be the 3rd largest country in the world. The world’s top 1000 universities alone have 23 million students, according to data from QS. And the sector continues to grow. But with positive growth comes material impacts on both our environment and society.
Coming Together
Robert Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1945, described the university as “a series of separate schools and departments held together by a central heating system”. Clark Kerr, the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1952-1958) once famously said that the university is “a federation of independent academic entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking”.
Even today this sentiment somewhat lingers, at least residually, with the sole requirement to secure a free reserved parking spot at Berkeley being to win a Nobel Prize. Sustainability requires a holistic organisational approach, “a whole-institution approach” (EUA, 2018), one that understands that the university is not just a business-oriented corporation, but also a community of scholars, administrators, managers, students and so on, held together by what should be, at least in theory, much more than parking issues. Tackling global challenges requires overcoming individuality, and managing the disparate parts of the institution as a coherent whole.
The QS Sustainability Framework
The QS Sustainability Ranking sets out to evaluate universities in a broadly holistic manner. It seeks not to be a ranking purely of inputs, but rather assess the university’s wider impact on society and environment, and how this is underpinned by strong governance. It is built around three categories: Environmental Impact, Social Impact, and Governance, or more simply, ESG: weighted at 45:45:10 (percent) respectively. Within each of these categories, we blend a combination of institutional data, research data, QS data, third-party data and national data. This helps to ensure that just simply submitting data to the ranking does not guarantee strong performance, as this performance needs to be reflected across different data sets.
It is through a combination of the university’s core roles, whether the production of knowledge, high quality education and ground-breaking innovation (UN SDGs 4 and 9); their role in contributing to civil society (UN SDG 16); reducing inequality through social mobility (UN SDG 10); and as promotors of global and local partnerships (Un SDG 17) that universities can facilitate all the other goals (EUA, 2018). However, for sustainability strategies to succeed requires a “whole-institution approach” (EUA, 2018), meaning universities must think and act as organisations and reflect upon all activities and missions they perform and how they contribute, positively or negatively towards achieving the UN SDGs, including in all three broad areas, namely well-being (UN SDG 1,2,3,4,5,6,10 and 11), the environment (UN SDG 7, 13, 14, and 15) and the economy (UN SDG 8, 9, 12).
2024 Edition
We have evolved our methodology this year, not only with the addition of the Governance category, but also with important new research metrics, and vital institutional metrics on emissions and renewables. In the next section, we will discuss our new Governance category, these important new metrics that we believe merit attention and some important notes about the size and scope of the ranking.
(Note: this is not an exhaustive list of this years’ changes. You can see the full methodology here).
Governance
Good governance is the hallmark of a successful organization, and it is imperative that universities have the right people in place, the right structures, and the right levels of representation. Strong and transparent governance is the foundation for progress on the social and environmental aspects.
In this new category, weighted at 10 percent overall, we look for evidence that universities have publicly available and relevant policies and practises in ethics (e.g., presence of an ethical compliance officer, ethics training, anti-bribery and corruption policies, EDI officers). We look at whether the institution is committed to open-access publishing, whether they have dedicated staff focusing in their sustainability, a democratically elected student’s union, transparent governance and financial statements and whether their own staff score view them as ethical operators.
Research
At the core of the QS Sustainability Framework lies research, constituting a significant 35 percent of the ranking—outweighing all other components. This deliberate emphasis reflects our early decision to gauge a university's broader impact on society and the environment primarily through its research endeavors. In an article published in the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Purcell et al. advocate for universities as catalysts for a sustainable future, labeling them "living labs" for sustainability (Purcell et al., 2019). Enhancing our research metrics, we now incorporate new indicators, focusing on policy citations and open-access publishing, to provide a more comprehensive evaluation.
1. Research Impact on Policy
In the realm of academic research, Erismann et al. (2021) advocate for a heightened emphasis on translating research findings into policymaking—an imperative gaining traction among researchers. Funding bodies are increasingly urging grantees to actively consider the integration of research outcomes into decision-making processes and policymaking (p.12). Policymakers, grappling with intricate challenges across sectors like healthcare, pensions, taxation, legislation, parliamentary processes, and higher education, necessitate real-world, context-sensitive evidence. Simultaneously, there's mounting pressure for applied research to address societal issues, particularly aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), demonstrate cost-effectiveness in publicly funded research, and yield impactful publications.
This indicator serves as a crucial bridge between research and policy, unlocking the full potential of research beyond the confines of academia. Recognising the conventional criticism directed at rankings for their narrow definition of research impact, QS acknowledges the need for an expanded perspective. In response, we've introduced three distinct policy citation metrics, each aligned with an Environmental, Social, or Governance (ESG) focus, carrying a 1 percent weightage individually. This assesses the citation impact of the institution’s research on policy work, such as government white papers, NGO reports and the like. Collaborating with research partners Elsevier and Overton, the data aims to enrich the evaluation of research impact on policy within the QS Sustainability Framework.
2. Open Access Research
We have also added a new research metric focusing on open-access publication, in our Governance category. The principles of Open Access are set out in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003). This declaration has been signed by hundreds of international organisations engaged in academic research across the world, including many universities and research organisations such as the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Cape Town, the University of Bologna, Harvard University, the University of the West Indies and even by all institutions involved in research at a country level, for example the Netherlands.
Open Access is the free and unrestricted access to research publications which translates into more visibility and reuse of academic research results. The increase in accessibility and dissemination of research leads to a much wider readership. It therefore provides greater evidence of impact and potential contribution to societal and economic wellbeing. In other words, universities contributions to the public good can be reinforced through a commitment to open access publishing. The accessibility of free, peer reviewed knowledge is also crucial to fight fake news and disinformation. It is vital for healthy and stable democracies and for any governing system based on the rule of law.
This is critical for global research, where individuals and groups in certain geographical regions are disadvantaged by limited access to the same large journal packages and databases as wealthier institutions in high-income countries. However, it will require robust discussions between publishers, governments, international organisations and universities, to ensure the cost of open access is not redirected towards authors in a way that discourages submissions from researchers and/or their institutions, through excessive and unjustified Article Processing Charges (APCs). Policy-makers and politicians must support universities in their negotiations with publishers, and provide further support to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge, in particular when it comes to support research produced in countries that receive official development assistance (ODA).
The QS Sustainability Ranking sets out to evaluate universities in a broadly holistic manner. It seeks not to be a ranking purely of inputs, but rather assess the university’s wider impact on society and environment, and how this is underpinned by strong governance.
Recording, managing and mitigating carbon emissions is perhaps the single most important thing that a university can do as a physical institution.
1. Emissions Efficiency and Renewables
Recording, managing and mitigating carbon emissions is perhaps the single most important thing that a university can do as a physical institution. Many universities have signed up to net-zero commitments, and record and report their emissions according to GHG protocols.
3.1 Emissions Efficiency / Intensity
Taking our cue from existing industry methods of measuring emissions, we added a measure of emissions efficiency, which is a type of ‘carbon intensity’ measure. You can find out more on these types of approaches here and here. Intensity measures defines the emissions in relation to another business metric, such as building footprint, sales, electricity generated etc. The QS approach uses a building footprint (square meters) approach. More details on this can be found on our support website here.
3.2 Renewable Energy
This metric is again straightforward. It assesses the total amount of renewable energy that a university generates on its campus annually. This could include energy generated from biomass-fuel, solar energy, wind turbines, ground source heat pumps and more. Universities often have large physical space and infrastructure available to them, and thinking proactively about how to use that space not only to conserve energy, but to generate it renewably, is something we want to encourage.
Pilot Edition vs. 2024 Edition
QS’ pilot edition of the Sustainability Ranking, published in October 2022, featured 700 institutions. To be eligible for the ranking, institutions had to have featured in the preceding QS World University Ranking. This year, we significantly widened the eligibility criteria to be more inclusive and to encourage more institutions to engage and submit data. We are thrilled that we have been able to evaluate more than 3000 institutions and have ranked approximately 1400. This increase in the underlying sample and publication range, obviously, has effects on the comparability year on year. There are some larger swings than you might expect from a more established ranking, but this is not too unexpected as we move from a smaller pilot to a larder scale evaluation. Additionally, with the addition of a new category, new metrics, and a rebalancing of weights elsewhere to allow for these changes, strict year-on-year- comparisons are not advisable.
Looking Ahead
Our hope for the QS Sustainability Ranking is that it acts as an impetus for change within the higher education sector. Our hope for the future, is that this ranking will earn a legacy for being a reliable and trusted data set from which prospective students can shape their decision making and institutions can develop effective sustainable strategies.