Durham University ranks 19th in the world for Arts and Humanities

This is the highest the faculty has ever ranked


The Times Higher Education (THE) World University rankings recently placed Durham University in the Top 20 for Arts and Humanities worldwide.

In the league table released last week, the university climbed a total of eight places since 2019 and now stands in 19th place, its highest ranking ever. This places Durham higher than London School of Economics and Political science, and among the likes of HMU Munich and Humboldt University of Berlin this year.

In terms of UK universities, the University of Edinburgh scored 10th place, UCL scored at 5th and Oxford and Cambridge placed 4th and 3rd respectively in the rankings. Overall, in first place for Arts and Humanities was Stanford University, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology coming in second.

The Times’ university rankings look at over 1,500 universities across 93 countries, making them the most diverse rankings in the world. They measure performances based upon four areas: research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international outlook. For the Arts and Humanities, the measures are recalibrated so that they highlight specific fields. This year’s table also includes 565 universities, 29 more than last year.

The tables employ 13 subject performance indicators which are brought together with scores from five categories; Teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. Weightings are then changed to suit individual fields. For the Arts and Humanities, Durham’s overall score sits at 72.9 per cent.  The research category achieved the highest at 75.6 per cent, followed by teaching (73.2 per cent), citations (72.6 per cent), international outlook (66.8 per cent) and industry outcome (48.1 per cent).