World University Rankings reputation survey launched

• Invitation-only Academic Reputation Survey - survey closes 23 May 2014
• Look out for an email from thomson@ts-productinfo.com
• If you are chosen to take part you will be representing your field and country in the THE World University Rankings
• No volunteers or nominations accepted to ensure fairness and statistical rigour
• Lend your time and expertise to help create this powerful assessment of the global teaching and research environment

Hundreds of thousands of academics will soon be invited to provide their expert opinion for the world’s biggest survey of university reputations of its kind.

Thomson Reuters has announced the launch of its fifth annual Academic Reputation Survey. The survey informs two key indicators of the 13 used to create the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which are next published in October 2014.

The survey results are also used in isolation to create the annual Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. The World Reputation Rankings 2014 will be published on Wednesday, 5 March 2014, based on the responses to last year’s Academic Reputation Survey.

This year’s survey will open on 3 March 2014. The survey is invitation-only, as respondents are carefully selected to be statistically representative of both their country and their discipline. Unlike similar exercises, no nominations from institutions or volunteers are accepted to ensure the statistically validity of the research.

So far, in four annual rounds of the survey, almost 60,000 experienced academics from more than 150 countries have taken part, providing rich insights into global university reputations.

“We are pleased to continue the Academic Reputation Survey with Times Higher Education and expect to see even more participants this year as awareness of the survey spreads,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director, Thomson Reuters Scientific & Scholarly Research.

“This initiative is critical in providing the academic community with an honest, user-based assessment of the global research landscape. It gives academics and researchers the opportunity to highlight what they see as the strongest universities within their fields.”

The survey, which is the largest of its kind, takes a unique approach to data-gathering and analytics by directly engaging more than 300,000 academics and researchers to gain a more accurate view into the institutional research sphere. The respondents are asked to identify the institutions they consider to be the best in terms of research and teaching, both in specific regions and globally.

As well as informing the THE World University Rankings and World Reputation Rankings, the responses form a key building block - along with scholarly output, citation patterns and funding levels - for the Thomson Reuters Global Institutional Profiles database.

Respondents are asked to answer questions in six subject areas: engineering and technology; physical sciences; life sciences; clinical, preclinical and health; social sciences; and, arts and humanities. To prevent language or translation bias, the survey is offered in nine languages: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, English, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.

Phil Baty, editor of THE’s portfolio of global rankings, said: “We have only been able to provide such a rich and insightful picture of global higher education thanks to the expert input of the global research community. Thousands of scholars from across the world are being invited to take part – by giving up no more than 20 minutes of their time and by lending their expertise, they will be representing their field and their country in this huge global study. We thank all participants in advance for helping to create this superb and fascinating resource.”

View the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2013

View the Academic Reputation Survey methodology and survey instrument