University of Auckland Best in World

The University of Auckland has taken the top spot in the inaugural Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings.

The new Impact Rankings system – which sits alongside, but does not replace, THE’s World University Rankings – measures how well universities adhere to the United Nations’ Development Goals. The goals, adopted by the UN in 2016, include commitments to protect dying resources on land and in the ocean, to combat climate change, to reduce world-wide poverty and hunger, to promote gender equality, to foster work and economic growth, and to create sustainable communities which value responsible consumption. The university scored best for its promotion of gender equality, healthy living, peace and justice, and for its partnership work with other similarly minded organisations.

THE says they hope the ranking will present a new means of comparing universities. While traditional university ranking systems are based purely on university’s academic results and reputation, THE says it is important to note “research and teaching are not universities’ only missions”. This ranking system is designed to measure and promote the “work being delivered by universities in our communities”. If it sounds a bit vague, that’s because it is – on its methodology page, THE admits the scores are calculated not according to “complex calculations”, but by more holistic scoring methods.

Unfortunately for students (and Stuart McCutcheon, who says the result shows UoA does “walk the talk”) it’s likely the university’s position will be challenged in future. For one thing, this year’s Impact Rankings only took into account 11 of the UN’s 17 development goals, meaning rankings are likely to change drastically as THE begins to include the missing development goals. Secondly, unlike THE’s flagship World University Rankings (which sees THE calculate a university’s score on their behalf), the Impact Rankings required universities to provide their own data. Universities which did not send in data, or did not send in enough, were excluded – meaning there were less universities involved. As the ranking system continues to develop, it is likely it will begin to attract more submissions from universities around the world.

In THE’s World University Rankings (which focuses on more traditional metrics of university success), the University of Auckland continues to disappoint. It currently sits in the 201st-250th place (universities ranked lower than 200 aren’t given specific numbers, but are placed in brackets), despite sitting in 52nd position in 2005, when Stuart McCutcheon first took office as the university’s Vice-Chancellor.