How to use the QS World University Rankings by Subject

There are five indicators that determine the QS World University Rankings by Subject: 

Academic reputation  

The Academic Reputation (AR) indicator measures the reputation of institutions and their programmes by asking academic experts to nominate universities based on their subject area of expertise. Pioneered by QS in 2004, it asks the question: which universities are demonstrating academic excellence?

To answer this we collect and distil the collective intelligence of academics from around the world via our Academic Survey, evaluating nominations for approximately 7000 institutions each year.

Employer reputation  

The employer reputation indicator draws from the survey responses of graduate employers worldwide. Employers are asked to identify institutions they consider excellent for the recruitment of graduates. They are also asked to identify the disciplines from which they prefer to recruit.  

Research citations per paper 

All citations data is sourced from Elsevier Scopus. A minimum publication threshold is set for each subject to avoid potential anomalies stemming from small numbers of highly cited papers. 

Both the minimum publications threshold and the weighting applied to the citations indicator are adapted in order to best reflect prevalent publication and citation patterns in a given discipline.  

H-index  

The H-index is a way of measuring both the productivity and impact of an academic or department at a university. The index is based on the set of the academic’s most cited papers and the number of citations they have received in other publications.  

International research network (by broad faculty area)  

The IRN Index reflects the ability of institutions to diversify the geography of their international research network by establishing sustainable research partnerships with other higher education institutions.  

Find out more about the indicators here. 

There are several ways you can use the QS World University Rankings by Subject to find the right university for you: 

Filter rankings by broad subject area  

The QS World University Rankings by Subject are sorted into five broad subject areas:  

• Arts and humanities 

• Engineering and technology  

• Life sciences and medicine 

• Natural sciences 

• Social sciences and management  

Each of these subject areas represent the overall ranking of universities in the degree programmes they offer in this area. For example, the engineering and technology area represents degrees in petroleum, mineral, civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, as well as computer science and data science.  

Looking at these broad subject areas is a good way to compare universities if you don’t know which degree programme to study, but just want an overall indication of the reputation of universities in a broad field.  

Filter rankings of individual programmes 

The subject rankings also offer the opportunity to view the rankings for specific subjects. This year’s rankings cover 55 disciplines, with everything from history of art to veterinary science. 

This is a good way to see specialist universities that perform well for specific subjects, but which might not perform as well in the overall global rankings. 

Filter by indicator 

When you load the subject rankings page, the default view will be ‘quick view’, which provides the basic ranking and the overall score for each university.  

However, if you select the ‘full view’ option, you will see how each university performs for each of the five individual indicators. If you then click on one of the indicators, the table will rank the top university for that specific indicator, allowing you to view the top universities for academic reputation or employer reputation, etc.  

Filter by location 

Another way to look at the rankings is by location. If you’re interested in studying in a certain part of the world, you can select the region to view the top universities there for your chosen subject.  

If you know the specific country you’re looking to study in, you can narrow down your search even further with the ‘location’ filter.