De La Salle University once again made headlines last April 4 as the only Philippine educational institution that made it into the 2019 Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings, earning a spot in the 301+ bracket.
The new ranking system was created to measure the social impact of universities by using certain United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as metrics. Over 400 universities across 75 countries worldwide submitted data to THE in an application period that began in September last year.
University President Br. Raymundo Suplido FSC offered a congratulatory message to the Lasallian community through an email sent last April 5. As the news coincided with the commemoration of the tercentenary of St. John Baptist de La Salle’s death, Suplido called for a rejuvenated pursuit of the Lasallian mission and the University’s Vision-Mission “as a leading resource for God and Country.”
Methodology behind the rankings
The newly-developed rankings is unique in that it employs the UN SDGs as a metric to determine the success of an academic institution. Out of the 17 SDGs, 11 were chosen by THE as the basis for the impact rankings which are divided into the categories of research, outreach, and stewardship.
Those included were Good Health and Well-Being; Quality Education; Gender Equality; Decent Work and Economic Growth; Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; Reduced Inequalities; Sustainable Cities and Communities; Climate Action; Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions; Responsible Consumption and Production; and Partnership for Goals.
Submissions for each SDG from each university were then divided into three categories: research metrics, which counted research output relevant to the SDGs; continuous metrics, which measured practices that contributes to impact; and timeframe, which limited the data to the academic year closest to January to December 2017.
To be part of the overall rankings, a university must submit data for SDG 17 or Partnership for the Goals and three other SDGs. To compute a university’s overall score, THE combined a university’s score from SDG 17 and its three highest scores from other SDGs. SDG 17 was given a weight of 22 percent while the other three SDGs were given a weight of 26 percent each.
Dutch information analytics company Elsevier joined the effort by supplying additional data to THE to create the rankings.
DLSU was notable in areas of Sustainable Cities and Communities; Decent Work and Economic Growth; Responsible Consumption and Production; Climate Action; and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, placing itself in the 201+ bracket for each of meanwhile aforementioned SDGs. Meanwhile, the University landed in the 301+ bracket for Quality Education and Partnership for the Goals.
Ranking sustainable development
The rankings were officially revealed in THE’s Innovation and Impact Summit held in South Korea last April 2 to 4. Overall, New Zealand’s University of Auckland came in first, followed by Canada’s McMaster University. Another Canadian institution, University of British Columbia, was tied with United Kingdom’s University of Manchester for third.
The new ranking system was first announced in 2018. According to THE’s website, this was the first time universities were compared based on the UN SDG’s, a welcome addition to the traditional research-based rankings. Participation was opened to accredited universities across the globe that cater to undergraduate students.
Consistent performance
DLSU had already made a name for itself in the rankings published by THE, consistently appearing in its lists as a competitive institution on the world stage. It previously entered the 2019 THE World University Rankings as the sole private Philippine university, securing a spot in the 801-1,000 bracket.
The University also held the same distinction when it made it into the 201-250 bracket in the publication’s 2019 Asia Pacific University Rankings, and into the 501-600 bracket in the 2019 Subject Rankings for Engineering and Technology.
