New Multi-year Partnership Sees Times Higher Education Continue to Draw on Elsevier's Scopus Data for its World University Rankings

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Jan 18, 2018, 04:00 ET

LONDON, January 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health which is part of RELX Group, and Times Higher Education (THE), the data provider underpinning university excellence in every continent across the world, today announced their extended partnership in a multi-year agreement.

This will see THE draw on Elsevier's Scopus data to power its flagship World University Rankings and derived rankings, including the Asia University Rankings, BRICS & Emerging Economies, World Reputation Rankings, Young University Rankings, US College Rankings, Japan University Rankings, and Latin America Rankings.

The THE World University Rankings score research-focused universities across all their core missions: research, teaching, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. Staff are surveyed to share their experiences and opinions and these results are combined with quantitative metrics and institutional own data about student and staff to compile the rankings. Scopus will now continue to be the sole source for the bibliometric data and reputation survey underlying the ranking.

Scopus is the world's largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed academic literature. Data included covers that of 5,000 publishers globally resulting in over 70 million records and 12 million author profiles indexed. The breadth of this data enables THE to analyse research activity from a greater number of institutions, including institutions from emerging economies that account for a growing share of global research today.

"Being able to tap into the wide span of global data coverage in Scopus has enabled us to go from covering 400 universities in our ranking 2014 to 1,100 today," said Trevor Barratt, Managing Director of Times Higher Education. "The extended deal is very much in line with our shared goal of helping universities improve their performance, and as part of this vision, we look forward to including new geographical regions that are emerging as growing research hubs."

Dr. Nick Fowler, Elsevier's Chief Academic Officer, said: "The THE University Rankings offer higher education and industry leaders invaluable insights on how to set strategic and investment priorities, and they help governments shape national policy. These are clear demonstrations of how THE and Elsevier are aligned in their commitment to help enable science have a transformative impact on society."

THE will also continue to draw on Elsevier's SciVal research benchmarking tool to develop its research performance metrics and analysis; Elsevier will continue to run an annual global academic reputation survey on THE's behalf. THE now also has access to education data from Elsevier's fellow RELX Group company, LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

For further background on the partnership between Elsevier and THE read this article and watch this video.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com