QS World University Rankings
     The QS university ranking, also known as QS, is a highly esteemed international ranking system administered by the British Cockerly Symonds Institute. It implements rigorous methodological advancements and has introduced three new criteria: sustainability, employability of graduates, and international research network. From 2009 to 2014, this ranking was jointly published with the THE ranking, after which both publications produced independent rankings. Unlike the THE ranking, which has adopted a new ranking methodology, QS continues to follow the original method it shared with The Times. Through collaboration with the Elsevier database, QS has been able to establish a comprehensive global university ranking system and subject rankings across various fields of study. The database conducts annual evaluations and assessments of universities in different subject areas. QS's subject ranking relies on four key indicators: university reputation, employers' evaluations, number of citations per article, and h-index. Each indicator is assigned a specific weight for individual subject areas, serving to identify the top universities. Data required for QS subject ranking is obtained from the Scopus citation database as well as surveys. Notably, the QS methodology in 2023 has undergone significant changes. The number of evaluation indicators has increased from 6 to 9, accompanied by adjustments in the weightage of these indicators. These modifications are provided below.
Academic reputation
     Accounting for 40% of the overall score, academic reputation relates to academic excellence and the scholarly esteem in which the world's universities are held. It collates more than 150,000 responses from academics in more than 140 countries and locations. QS has previously published the job titles and geographical distribution of the participants in this survey.
Faculty/student ratio
     This indicator accounts for 15% of a university's score in the rankings. It is a classic measure used in various ranking systems as an indication of staff resources afforded to students, including teaching capacity, class size, curriculum development, lab and seminar delivery, pastoral care, teaching capacity and class size. QS has admitted that it is a limited metric, particularly in the face of modern enhancements in online teaching methods and content distribution.
Citations/faculty
      Citations of published research are among the most widely used inputs to national and global university rankings. The QS World University Rankings used citation data from Thomson (now Thomson Reuters) from 2004 to 2007, and since then has used data from Scopus, part of Elsevier. The total number of citations for a five-year period is divided by the number of academics in a university to yield the score for this measure, which accounts for 20% of a university's score in the rankings.
QS has explained that it uses this approach, rather than the citations per paper preferred for in other rankings systems because it reduces the impact of biomedical science on the overall picture – biomedicine has a ferocious "publish or perish" culture. Instead, QS attempts to measure the density of research-active staff at each institution, but issues remain about the use of citations in ranking systems, especially the fact that the arts and humanities generate comparatively few citations.
Since 2015, QS has made methodological enhancements designed to remove the advantage institutions specializing in the Natural Sciences or Medicine previously received. This enhancement is termed faculty area normalization and ensures that an institution's citations count in each of QS's five key Faculty Areas is weighted to account for 20% of the final citations score.
QS has conceded the presence of some data-collection errors regarding citations per faculty in previous years' rankings.
One concern is the differences between the Scopus and Thomson Reuters databases. For major world universities, the two systems capture largely the same publications and citations. For less prominent institutions, Scopus has more non-English language and smaller-circulation journals in its database leading some critics to suggest that citation averages are skewed towards English-speaking universities. This area has been criticized for undermining universities that do not use English as their primary language.
Employer reputation
      QS's Employer Reputation indicator is obtained using another survey, like Academic Reputation, and accounts for 15% of an institution's overall score. The most recent edition surveyed some 99,000 employers at companies and organizations that hire graduates on a significant or global scale.
This survey was introduced in 2005 in the belief that employers track graduate quality, making this a barometer of teaching quality and the level of work readiness acquired by students, a famously problematic factor to measure. University standing here is of special interest to potential students, and acknowledging this was the impetus behind the inaugural QS Graduate Employability Rankings, published in November 2015.  However, these rankings were subsequently discontinued in 2021, with its data rolled into the QS World University Rankings methodology.
Internationalization
     The final 10% of a university's score is derived from measures intended to capture their internationalization: half from their percentage of international students, and the other half from their percentage of international staff. This is of interest partly because it shows whether a university is putting effort into global collaboration and diversity, but also because it indicates global appeal for students and researchers around the world.
QS recently began distinguishing between International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio', both of which account for 5% of the total weightage. While the former evaluates the ratio of international faculty staff to overall staff, the latter assumes that Institutions that have a large number of international students should have better networking, cultural exchanges, a more diverse learning experience and alumni diversity.
Other factors
     Beginning with its 2024 rankings, QS implemented three new indicators to reflect the shifts in higher education, each of which accounts for 5% of the total weightage:
•    International Research Network, primarily referencing an institution's ability to create and sustain research partnerships and worldwide collaboration networks.
•    Employment Outcomes, reflecting an institution's ability to ensure a high level of employability for their graduates.
•    Sustainability, reflecting an institution's ability to demonstrate a sustainable existence.