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14 March 2013

The worldwide survey of academic opinion that will fuel both the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-2014 and the 2014 World Reputation Rankings has now been launched

Thomson Reuters, which supplies all data for THE's rankings, confirmed today it has launched its fourth annual Academic Reputation Survey.

Over the coming weeks, many thousands of academics from all over the world will be invited to provide their expert, subject-level view of the best universities in their field.

All those invited to take part in the survey, which is available in ten languages, are statistically representative of their region and their academic discipline. The survey accepts no volunteers or nominations from institutions, to guard against sample bias.

"Those invited to take part are representing both their country and their discipline," said Phil Baty, Times Higher Education rankings editor. "So we urge them to join tens of thousands of their peers and lend their expertise and give up a little of their time to help us develop this insightful and valuable picture of the most reputable universities in the world."

In 2012 there were more than 16,600 respondents, and in the three annual rounds of the survey, around 48,000 responses have been collected from more than 150 countries.

The survey forms two key indicators of the 13 used to create the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which will next be published in October 2013. The survey results are also used in isolation to produce the annual Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, published each March.

The survey simply asks respondents which institutions they consider the best in terms of both research and teaching. They are not asked to rank institutions, but simply to name no more than 15 which they consider to be the "best".

From the start of the survey until its close on 17 May, respondents will have the opportunity to answer questions in six subject areas: engineering and technology; physical sciences; life sciences; clinical, preclinical and health; social sciences; and arts and humanities.

To help control for language and translation bias, the survey is offered in Arabic, Brazilian, Portuguese, European Portuguese, English, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.

As well as fuelling Times Higher Education rankings, the survey forms part of Thomson Reuters' Global Institutional Profiles Project, an initiative to create data-driven profiles of globally significant research institutions.

Find out how the survey informs the World Reputation Rankings and .

Phil Baty is editor, Times Higher Education Rankings