Impact Rankings 2022: decent work and economic growth

The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings are the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We use carefully calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparison across four broad areas: research, stewardship, outreach and teaching.

This table on SDG 8 – decent work and economic growth measures universities’ economics research, their employment practices and the share of students taking work placements.

The list includes 849 institutions from 95 countries/regions.

View the methodology for Impact Rankings 2022: decent work and economic growth (SDG 8)

The ranking is led by South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, while Fudan University in China and Yonsei University (Seoul campus) in South Korea complete the top three.

The UK is the most-represented nation in the top 100, with 19 institutions, followed by Australia with 11 and Canada with 10.

The Impact Rankings are inherently dynamic: they are growingly rapidly each year as many more universities seek to demonstrate their commitment to delivering the SDGs by joining our database; and they allow institutions to demonstrate rapid improvement year-on-year, by introducing clear new policies, for example, or by providing clearer and more open evidence of their progress. Therefore, we expect and welcome regular change in the ranked order of institutions (and we discourage year-on-year comparisons) as universities continue to drive this urgent agenda.

View the full results of the overall Impact Rankings 2022

Read our analysis of the Impact Rankings 2022 results


To raise your university’s global profile with Times Higher Education, contact branding@timeshighereducation.com

To unlock the data behind THE’s Impact Rankings and access a range of analytical and benchmarking tools, click here

How to get your uni ranked

Explore Impact Rankings for individual SDGs