The Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Impact Ratings, formerly the THE Impact Rankings, compare universities on their contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This guide summarises the 2026 methodology in plain English for UTM staff who prepare evidence. THE’s own methodology document remains the reference.
Who takes part and what is ranked
Any university that teaches at undergraduate or postgraduate level can take part, and there is no minimum research requirement. A university receives a score and a rank for every SDG for which it submits data. The 2026 edition publishes 18 tables: one overall table and 17 SDG tables.
How the overall score is built
For the overall table a university must submit data on at least four SDGs, and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) is compulsory. The annual score combines SDG 17, worth up to 22%, with the three strongest of the other SDGs, each worth up to 26%.
THE scales every SDG score to a common 0-100 range before choosing the three strongest. They are therefore not necessarily the SDGs where the university is ranked highest. The overall 2026 score is the average of the 2025 and 2026 annual scores, or the 2026 annual score alone if the university did not take part in 2025.
What SDG 17 contains
SDG 17 is compulsory, so every university in the overall table is scored on it. It has four metrics.
| Metric | What THE looks at | Weight in SDG 17 |
|---|---|---|
| 17.1 Research on partnerships | Publications co-authored with low or lower-middle income countries, and the number of publications on SDGs 1 to 17 | 13.55% for each of the two indicators |
| 17.2 Relationships to support the goals | Input into SDG policy, cross-sectoral dialogue, international data collaboration, best practice and work with NGOs | 18.5% |
| 17.3 Publication of SDG reports | Whether the university publishes progress on each of the 17 SDGs | 27.2% |
| 17.4 Education for the SDGs | A commitment to SDG education, dedicated courses and outreach to the wider community | 27.2% |
For 17.3 THE asks for a link to the relevant report for each SDG, published in the most recent or relevant academic year. Earlier Impact Ratings results are not by themselves counted as a report. UTM’s own publications of this kind are described on the 2026 reports page.
Research metrics and evidence-based questions
Research metrics use Scopus documents found through SDG keyword searches, supplemented by documents identified with machine learning, for the years 2020 to 2024. They are worth 27% of each SDG score, about 7% of the overall score.
Other questions are evidence-based. THE awards up to three points: one for the statement, up to one for the evidence and one if the evidence is public. A university that provides no data on a metric scores zero for it.
Evidence rules for 2026
For 2026 THE uses a large language model as the primary validator of qualitative evidence, with human validators doing quality assurance. A practical checklist follows from the rules.
- Prefer a web address to a public page: THE treats public data as strong evidence.
- Give one piece of evidence per indicator, the best one.
- Make it self-contained. The reviewer, human or model, does not click links or explore other pages, and documents or pages with multiple links are rejected.
- If only part of a long document is relevant, say which part in the Comments field. THE does not scan whole documents.
- Uploads can be .doc, .pdf, Excel, .gif, .jpeg or .png, but not .rar, .txt or .zip. Video and audio are not accepted as evidence.
- Keep online evidence public until at least the start of the next data collection cycle. THE may contact universities that remove it.
Data year
For the 2026 edition THE requests data from the academic year 2024: the calendar year 2024, the academic year that ended in 2024 (2023-24), the financial year that ended in 2024, or another annual cycle that ends in 2024. THE says there are no significant methodology changes in 2026 compared with 2025, and it updates the accepted years with each edition.
For UTM’s result, read UTM first in Tunisia in the THE Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026.
Sources
- Times Higher Education: Sustainability Impact Ratings Methodology 2026, version 1.0
- Times Higher Education: Out now, Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026 (press release)