Exploring the nexus between university sustainability practices and academic performance: An empirical analysis of the QS sustainability ranking and four world university rankings.

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  • Author(s): Irungu RW;Irungu RW; Liu Z; Liu Z; Liu Z
  • Source:
    PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Oct 31; Vol. 19 (10), pp. e0306286. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 31 (Print Publication: 2024).
  • Publication Type:
    Journal Article
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science
    • Subject Terms:
      Academic Performance*/statistics & numerical data; Universities ; Humans ; Sustainable Development ; Students
    • Abstract:
      Universities, as agents of change, are expected to contribute to society's most pressing challenges, particularly the 21st century's central issue of sustainability. Amid growing expectations from governments, society, and an increasingly conscientious student body, universities have undergone significant institutional adjustments to incorporate sustainability into their core missions of education, research, and outreach. As universities worldwide increasingly engage in sustainability practices, the question arises: How do these sustainability endeavours correlate with academic performance on a global scale? This article, using data from the QS Sustainability Ranking and four prominent academic ranking (THEWUR, ARWU, QSWUR and USWUR), investigates this link. The study explores whether sustainability relates to the academic performance of universities, the validity of the relationship when academic scores of the four rankings are aggregated, and its dependence on country-level sustainability performance scores. Findings reveal that sustainability practices have a reflection on the university rankings, providing a global competitive advantage for universities. While this study incorporates aggregated scores as a methodological innovation addressing the lack of uniformity among ranking systems, it recommends the inclusion of university-level control variables (such as faculty expertise, university budget, infrastructure) and government and policy variables in future studies to ensure robustness of the results.
      Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
      (Copyright: © 2024 Irungu, Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
    • References:
      Lancet Planet Health. 2021 Sep;5(9):e576-e577. (PMID: 34508678)
      Heliyon. 2023 Apr;9(4):e14813. (PMID: 37035352)
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20241031 Date Completed: 20241031 Latest Revision: 20241102
    • Publication Date:
      20241103
    • Accession Number:
      PMC11527258
    • Accession Number:
      10.1371/journal.pone.0306286
    • Accession Number:
      39480827