- International university rankings provide composite measures of academic quality, research output, teaching quality, and international reputation based on metrics like peer review surveys, citation counts, faculty-student ratios, and percentages of international students and faculty. - While rankings are not intended as strict league tables, they have significant real-world impacts by influencing government and university policies and priorities around the world as well as student choice. - Rankings also create competition between institutions to improve their standing through strategies like increasing research productivity, attracting top faculty and students internationally, and enhancing teaching quality and graduate employability.