Top universities pursuing sustainable development goals in 2024

University Impact Rankings for 2024

Times Higher Education presents the University Impact Rankings for 2024, identifying and celebrating universities that excel across multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Not only do these institutions stand out in individual areas but they also demonstrate comprehensive excellence in contributing to global sustainable development. By excelling in a variety of SDGs, these universities showcase their commitment to addressing the world's most pressing challenges, including environmental sustainability, social inclusion, economic growth and partnerships.

These leading universities are recognised for their overarching impact across several dimensions of sustainable development, making significant contributions to creating a sustainable and resilient future. Their broad-based excellence underscores the importance of holistic approaches to global challenges and highlights the critical role of academia in driving sustainable change.

Summary of findings

THE evaluated 2,152 universities from 125 countries/regions to produce the overall Impact Ranking for 2024. Australia’s Western Sydney University tops the list for the third consecutive year. The UK’s University of Manchester and Australia’s University of Tasmania follow in joint second place.

The top newcomer in 2024 is France’s Institut Agro at joint 21st.

India is the most-represented country in the overall table, with 96 institutions.  

Methodology

Our methodology for the overall Impact Rankings integrates scores across multiple SDGs to reflect overall performance and impact:

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals (22%)

• Weight of the score reflects the university’s efforts in fostering robust international partnerships and cooperation for achieving all SDGs.

Top three scores from other SDGs (each 26%)

• The ranking considers the three highest scores from the other SDGs for each university, acknowledging their areas of strongest impact and contribution to sustainable development.
• This approach highlights the universities’ specialised strengths while also rewarding well-rounded contributions to the global SDG agenda.

This overall ranking celebrates universities that are not only leaders in specific SDGs but also those that maintain a high level of excellence across a broad spectrum of goals. By doing so, it emphasises the interconnectedness of all SDGs and the importance of multifaceted strategies in achieving sustainable development.

The Impact Rankings are inherently dynamic: they are growing rapidly each year as many more universities seek to demonstrate their commitment to delivering the SDGs by joining our database; and they allow institutions to demonstrate rapid improvement year-on-year, by introducing clear new policies, for example, or by providing clearer and more open evidence of their progress. Therefore, we expect and welcome regular change in the ranked order of institutions (and we discourage year-on-year comparisons) as universities continue to drive this urgent agenda.

Read our analysis of the Impact Rankings 2024 results

Download a free copy of the Impact Rankings 2024 digital report

Register to participate in next year’s Impact Rankings

To raise your university’s global profile with Times Higher Education, contact branding@timeshighereducation.com

To unlock the data behind THE’s Impact Rankings and access a range of analytical and benchmarking tools, click here