World University Rankings 2024 by subject: physical sciences methodology

The World University Rankings 2024 by subject will be published at 6am BST on 26 October.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 physical sciences subject ranking includes a range of narrower subject areas.

The subjects used to create this ranking are:

• Mathematics and statistics
• Physics and astronomy
• Chemistry
• Geology, environmental, earth and marine sciences

Different weights and measures

However, the overall methodology is carefully recalibrated for each subject, with the weightings changed to suit the individual fields.

The weightings for the physical sciences ranking are:

• Teaching: the learning environment
  26.8 per cent
• Research environment: volume, income and reputation
  26.5 per cent
• Research quality: strength, influence and excellence 
  35.2 per cent
• International outlook: staff, students and research
  7.5 per cent
• Industry: income and patents 
  4 per cent

Criteria

Two criteria determine eligibility for the THE subject rankings: a publication threshold by discipline and an academic staff* threshold by discipline.

No institution can be included in the overall World University Rankings unless it has published a minimum of 1,000 relevant publications over the five years that we examine (2018-2022 for the 2024 rankings). 

For the 11 subject tables, the publication thresholds are different. For physical sciences, the threshold drops to 500 papers published in this discipline over the five-year period.

There is also an academic staff eligibility criterion. An institution needs to have either a minimum proportion of its staff or a minimum number of staff in this discipline to be included in the subject ranking.

For physical sciences, we expect an institution to have either at least 5 per cent of its academic staff or at least 50 academic staff in the physical sciences discipline.

*Academic staff is defined as the full-time equivalent number of staff employed in an academic post, for example, lecturer, reader or professor.