MENA Data Masterclass

October 2022
MENA Data Masterclass

World University Rankings 2023

MENA trends and analyses

The Next Generation – WUR 3.0 new methodology

Consultancy offering

How to participate

Q&A

2
World
University
Rankings 2023

3
50 Years of Insights
To help universities understand their position against their mission.
To help students find and access the university best suited to their
abilities and aspirations.
To help higher education deliver transformational teaching,
research and innovation.

1971 2021
Our Rankings

IMPACT &
TEACHING RESEARCH
SUSTAINABILITY

Focus: student satisfaction,
employer
reputation, graduation rate +
more
Participation rules: country
specific
Focus: research output, research Focus: research, teaching,
quality, stewardship and outreach
research collaboration, reputation + against the UN’s 17
more Sustainable Development
Goals
Participation rules: 1,000+ publications
over 5 years, teach undergraduates Participation rules: all UG or
across PG higher education
a range of subjects institutions
Methodology
Number of universities and subjects

Largest per subject: Physical sciences

(1307)
Smallest per subject: Law (290)

WUR23
Participation across the world
2023 Analysis Middle East &
and Trends North Africa

3
MENA vs World Trend Analysis 2018 - 2023

This analysis considers how MENA university scores have

changed in the World University Rankings in the years 2018 to
2023.

Only universities that have been present in every ranking from

2018 to 2023 are considered for these analyses.

MENA has 45 such university, World excluding MENA has 969

such universities.

These universities include:

• King Abdulaziz University
• King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
• Qatar University
• King Saud University
• University of Sharjah
• United Arab Emirates University
• Alfaisal University
• American University of Beirut
• Khalifa University
• Babol Noshirvani University of Technology
• Sharif University of Technology
Distribution of universities in MENA in WUR 2023

There are a total of 169 institutions in MENA ranked in the World University Rankings 2023. The top ranked university in MENA is King
Abdulaziz University, which is ranked 101st
MENA vs Rest of the World WUR 2023 metrics comparison

The boxes for MENA are on the left, the boxes for the Rest of the World are on the right
Iran vs Rest of the World WUR 2023 metrics comparison

The boxes for Iran are on the left, the boxes for the Rest of the World are on the right
Egypt vs Rest of the World WUR 2023 metrics comparison

The boxes for Egypt are on the left, the boxes for the Rest of the World are on the right
Saudi Arabia vs Rest of the World WUR 2023 metrics comparison

The boxes for Saudi Arabia are on the left, the boxes for the Rest of the World are on the right
MENA Pillar Score changes – 2018-2023

MENA Iran

Egypt Saudia Arabia

 MENA vs World WUR 2023 subjects analysis

Across MENA, Engineering was the most frequently ranked subject in 2023 where it was ranked for 136 universities.
Psychology was the least frequently ranked subject in 2023 with just 6 universities ranked.

_ MENA World University Ranking Analysis - © Times Higher Education - Quarter 1 2023 8
MENA vs Rest of the World WUR 2023 subjects comparison

The boxes for MENA are on the left, the boxes for the Rest of the World are on the right
Explore the
data

5
WUR 3.0 The next
iteration of our
methodology

5
WUR 3.0 Methodology Overview

To cater for the large numbers of universities,

WUR 3.0 sees some significant changes
• Moving to 3 bibliometrics designed to
Citations be more representative of quality
output

• Survey brought in-house resulting in

Reputation three times as many votes

International • Adapted to have a better reflection of

outlook students, country size and diversity

Patents • A new metric based on patents

Citation: What is Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)?

FWCI is the ratio of the number of

citations a publication receives to
the expected number of citation of
the same
• Type
• Subject
• Year
Papers
Reviews
Currently, Citation Impact of an
institution is the mean FWCI of all Conferences
of its eligible publications Books
Book chapters
Citation: Research Quality

• FWCI at the 75th percentile for all

publications for a university

• Replaces taking the mean average

across all publications

mean • Avoids extreme papers having

75th percentile detrimental effect

• Removes the need for some fixes we

had previously
• Kilo author papers
• Country normalisation
Citation: Research Excellence

• Number of papers in the top 10%

Excellence
worldwide
• Based on FWCI
• Normalised by year, subject, and
staff numbers

• Recognises the institutions

mean contribution to the best research in
75th percentile
each subject, and overall

• NOT the top 10% of universities

papers, but the number of papers
they contribute to the top 10% of
research by subject according to
FWCI
 Citation: Research Influence

• Similar to PageRank

• Importance of paper is based on if it is cited by important papers

• This requires iteration to get to a conclusion
• Subject based
• Unique measure

• Rewards ‘good’ self-citations whilst

ignoring ‘bad’ self-citations

• Challenge for younger institutions

Reputation: Survey format

• Strictly invitation-only (universities cannot make nominations or supply

Key participation contact lists, and individuals cannot nominate themselves for participation)
• Academics must have at least one cited research paper and have
criteria published in the last 5 years.

• Scholars are questioned at the level of their specific subject discipline and
are asked to name up to 15 universities that they believe are the best in
Survey research and teaching, both in general and in their direct experience
• The survey is translated into 12 languages

Fair • Results are benchmarked using UNESCO data to ensure the ranking is
representative of the global distribution of scholars, both by country and
representation subject

Survey open now until 31 Jan 2023

 Reputation: In house data collection

The teaching and research reputation metrics are unchanged in WUR 3.0. However, we
are now conducting this survey ourselves (it was previously conducted by Elsevier).
The new in-house 2021 (Elsevier) 2022 (In house) Change
survey attracts 3
times as many
Respondents 10,963 29,606 +170%
votes as the
previous out-
Ranking votes 149,536 420,204 +181%
sourced survey,
giving us far more
Experiential votes 107,169 309,167 +188%
representation, plus
deeper insight as
we know more Countries participating 128 159
about the
respondents Response rate 1.6% 1.8%

We are currently looking at restrictions on self-voting, and comparative voting alongside

the current recall based voting
 International Outlook: Accounting for country size

• Large countries have been disadvantaged

compared to small countries in our international
metrics, in that it is “easier” for staff and students in
small countries to work/study abroad.

• In WUR 3.0, the existing metrics will be normalised

to account for the populations size:
• Proportion of international students
• Proportion of international staff
• Proportion of publications with at least one co-
author from an international institution

• Additionally a new metric has been added to

measure the level of outbound students
 International Outlook: Studying abroad

• Additional metric - outbound exchange students

• Trialled data collection in WUR 2023

• Most universities are able to supply data

• However, international student mobility was significantly affected by the COVID pandemic in
2020-2021

• The initial release of WUR 3.0 (WUR 2024) will introduce this field as mandatory but the
metric will be given zero weight
 Industry: Patents

• Directly measures research output, specifically how much an institution’s research is cited by
patents. This is similar to one that we already use within the THE Impact Rankings (in SDG
9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure).

• This measure is subject weighted to avoid penalising universities producing research in fields
low in patents.

• This is a count of patents, normalised by staff numbers.

Putting it all together

WUR 2.1 WUR 2.1 WUR 3.0 WUR 3.0

Current Proposed Metric Subject Scoring metric pillar metric pillar Key
pillar name pillar name code Propsed metric name weighted algorithm weight weight weight weight
t1 Teaching reputation FALSE exponential_65 15.00% 15.00% Changed
t2 Student staff ratio FALSE normal_cdf 4.50% 4.50% New
Teaching Teaching t3 Doctorate bachelor ratio FALSE normal_cdf 2.25% 30.00% 2.00% 29.50% Removed
t4 Doctorate staff ratio TRUE normal_cdf 6.00% 5.50% Being finalised
t5 Institutional income FALSE normal_cdf 2.25% 2.50%
r1 Research reputation FALSE exponential_65 18.00% 18.00% Weights
Research
Research r2 Research income TRUE normal_cdf 6.00% 30.00% 5.50% 29.00% shown are for
Environment
r3 Research productivity TRUE normal_cdf 6.00% 5.50% the Overall
c1 Citation Impact FALSE normal_cdf 30.00% 0.00% subject
Research c2 Research strength FALSE normal_cdf 10.00%
Citations 30.00% 30.00%
Quality c3 Research excellence TRUE exponential_cdf 10.00%
c4 Research influence TRUE exponential_cdf 10.00%
e1 Industry income FALSE normal_cdf 2.50% 2.00%
Industry Industry 2.50% 4.00%
e2 Patents TRUE exponential_cdf 2.00%
i1 International students FALSE normal_cdf 2.50% 2.50%
International International i2 International staff FALSE normal_cdf 2.50% 2.50%
7.50% 7.50%
Outlook Outlook i3 International co-authorship TRUE normal_cdf 2.50% 2.50%
i4 Studying abroad FALSE normal_cdf 0.00%
TOTAL 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
THE
Consultancy

5
THE Consultancy

Consultancy offerings include:

Consultancy Rankings
Reputation and
(WUR and
brand audit
Impact)

Research
Courses and
strategy
markets review
development

Transnational
education (TNE) Thought
partnership leadership
development
Rankings consultancy

• In-depth review of your university’s

Applicable for:
performance in the rankings, at overall and
subject level Universities not yet
Universities already
ranked, wishing to
ranked in WUR2023
• Analysis of your university’s performance ‘simulate’ performance
in the new WUR 3.0 metrics

• Benchmark performance against a Outputs:

selection of peer universities of your
choosing Virtual or face-to-face
presentation with Written report
summary write-up
• Understand the likely impact of the new
metrics on your university’s rankings
performance
Contact

To enquire about THE’s consultancy offerings please

contact:

Consultancy@timeshighereducation.com
World How to
University participate?
Rankings 2024

5
Eligibility Criteria

Participation in THE World University Rankings (or any other

THE rankings) is always free of charge. However, there is a set
of eligibility criteria

• Must teach at undergraduate level

• Publication requirements
• At least 1000 publications in 5 years
• At least 150 publications each year
• Separate publication requirements for the subject rankings

• Must not be a subject specialist

How to take part

We need your help for the institutional data

1. Nominate a Data Provider

A Data Provider for your institution will need to be nominated.
Please email us at profilerankings@timeshighereducation.com

2. Connect to the Portal

Your Data Provider will receive login details to connect to the Data Collection Portal
The Portal will be open between 9 January 2023 and 30 March 2023
Data Collection Portal 1/3
Complete the
stages of the
data
collection
process

Data collection
materials are
available for
download in 12
languages
Data Collection Portal 2/3

Art and Humanities

We collect data at the institution level and in our 11 Business and Economics
subjects Clinical and Health
Computer Science
• Staff and international staff Education
• Students and international students Engineering
• Undergraduate degrees awarded and doctorates awarded Law
• Income data Life Sciences
Physical Sciences
New field for this year: outbound exchange students Psychology
Social Sciences
 Data Collection Portal 3/3
Once you
are done
with data
entry,
please go
to this tab
to submit
your data

Enter the
data
Q&A

5
 Explore more of THE's datasets
Would you like to assess the
impact of WUR 3.0 on your
ranking performance?
THE Consulting provides in-depth
knowledge and bespoke analyses
to help you navigate the changing
world of global higher education
Contact THE Consulting
_ Explore more of THE's datasets - © Times Higher Education - Quarter 1 2023
Join THE Membership to Get direct access to the data via
receive these reports on an THE DataPoints - THE's data
annual basis benchmarking platform
THE members receive exclusive Comprehensive country insights
access to a variety of THE data is available in THE
resources, events and data to DataPoints via an interactive
support with training and dashboard where you can access
development. THE Membership is all datasets for all countries and
available to universities, territories.
organisations and governments for
a low annual cost, and includes
access to THE's Country Insights
Reports (which are updated
regularly).
THE Membership Explore THE DataPoints
138