THE Impact Rankings
In the latest THE Impact Rankings published in spring 2024, MU was ranked 401-600 out of 1,963 universities worldwide. The sixth edition of the competition presents 9 Czech public universities and 1 private university. In the local comparison, MU was ranked one place behind Charles University, sharing the second position with ČZU and UPOL.
In the current edition of the ranking, MU is involved in the evaluation of 11 out of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It achieved the best ranking in Goal 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, with 95th position globally. Goal 16 tracks publishing on the topic, the extent of the university's cooperation with state actors, the application of democratic principles on campus, and also measures the proportion of university graduates with law degrees.
Other MU areas of strength include Goal 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and Goal 12 Responsible Production and Consumption, ranked 101-200. In addition to scholarly performance on the topic, Goal 11 also assesses the institution's commitment to supporting the arts and cultural heritage, including financial expenditures on cultural, sporting and artistic activities, values support for sustainable local community development, staff support for sustainable transportation and housing, and last but not least, sustainable construction and development of the institution's infrastructure. Objective 12 is largely focused on waste management, including waste reduction and ethical purchasing, and also monitors scientific performance on the topic of responsible production and consumption.
In the mandatory Goal 17, Partnerships for the Goals, MU dropped to rank 401-600 in this year's assessment. Goal 17 assesses the extent to which the university contributes to national or cross-sectoral dialogue on sustainable development issues, collaborates with local or national NGOs and research institutions in this area, offers courses to students on environmental topics or engages in measurement and data collection in the area of environment and sustainable development. It also questions the universities about the regular reporting of its progress in meeting the Goals in the form of a public report or a paper.
Methodology:
THE Impact Rankings is compiled by THE since 2019 and aims to map the extent to which higher education institutions are contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For each of the 17 Goals, it assesses performance in the areas of research, education, social impact and institutional governance. Masaryk University joined the ranking for the first time in 2021, when it was ranked 401st-600th overall among the world's 1,115 universities.
Institutions can decide which of the SDGs they wish to be ranked for. They would then provide input data for these selected goals. Direct input from participating universities forms the largest part of the overall assessment. For research, THE receives input from Elsevier (Scopus database).
For each SDG in which a university chooses to participate, it receives a score as well as an individual ranking. The range of scores, as well as the types and weights of each indicator, varies between SDGs. In order to be included in the overall THE Impact assessment, an institution must be actively engaged in at least four SDGs, with SDG17 (Partnership for the Goals) being a mandatory one.
For the overall assessment, the resulting scores of each SDG in which the institution has chosen to engage are converted to a scale of 0–100. The range follows the earned score of all institutions assessed in that SDG (the best one getting 100, the least getting 0). This step is followed by a selection of the top 3 SDGs of each institution based on the highest scaled score assigned. The fourth SDG - SDG17, is mandatory.
The converted scores from these four SDGs enter the overall ranking in proportions according to the following scheme. As a very last step, an institution's final score in the most recent evaluation is calculated as an average of the total scores from the last two years' evaluations.
THE Impact indicators – research
- 27% of the score in each individual SDG comes from the research area
- The assessment is based on a mapping of publications to each SDG in Scopus; this mapping uses machine learning techniques and is described in more detail on the Elsevier website
- arameters such as Number of publications, FWCI, Paper views, Clinical citations, etc. enter the research evaluation
- For the research area, the university does not supply any input data of its own
THE Impact indicators - evidenced by records
- Indicators requiring evidence are yes/no questions, or a choice of options, or a combination of both
- For evidence (e.g. web link, embedded document), its relevance to the question and its public availability on the internet is being assessed
- Typically 3 points can be awarded for each question - up to 1 point if the university fully meets the objective of the question, up to 1 point for evidence being relevant, up to 1 point for the availability of the provided evidence publicly on the internet
- 1 extra point is awarded for regulations (guidelines, measures, etc.) that have been revised (or newly published) during the period of reference