University Impact Rankings 2021

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. The overall ranking includes 1,118 universities from 94 countries/regions.

Key insights

• The overall ranking is led by a UK university for the first time: the University of Manchester
• Three Australian institutions complete the top four: the University of Sydney, RMIT University and La Trobe University
• The top institution from an emerging economy is Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University at joint 23rd place
• Russia is the most-represented nation in the table with 75 institutions, followed by Japan with 73