THE Sustainability Impact Ratings
In the latest THE Impact Rankings published in spring 2026, MU was ranked 201st-300th out of 1,603 universities worldwide and number one among Czech Universities. The eighth edition of the competition presents 6 Czech public universities and 1 private university.
In the current edition of the ranking, MU is involved in the evaluation of all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It achieved the best placement in the Goals 6 (Clean water and sanitation), 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) and 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions), ranking top 100 in the global comparison for all these SDGs. The assessment covered the scientific contribution to each of the themes, the institution's gvernance, educational activities, outreach activities and cross-sectoral collaboration to support the SDGs.
In the mandatory Goal 17 (Partnership for the Goals), MU ranked 101st-200th in this year's assessment. Goal 17 evaluates the extent to which the university contributes to national or cross-sectoral dialogue on sustainable development issues, collaborates with local or national NGOs and research institutions in this area, offers courses to students on environmental topics or engages in measurement and data collection in the area of environment and sustainable development. It also questions the universities about the regular reporting of its progress in meeting the Goals in the form of a public report or a paper.
Methodology:
THE Impact Rankings is compiled by THE since 2019 and aims to map the extent to which higher education institutions are contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For each of the 17 Goals, it assesses performance in the areas of research, education, social impact and institutional governance. Masaryk University joined the ranking for the first time in 2021, when it was ranked 401st-600th overall among the world's 1,115 universities.
Institutions can decide which of the SDGs they wish to be ranked for. They would then provide input data for these selected goals. Direct input from participating universities forms the largest part of the overall assessment. For research, THE receives input from Elsevier (Scopus database).
For each SDG in which a university chooses to participate, it receives a score as well as an individual ranking. The range of scores, as well as the types and weights of each indicator, varies between SDGs. In order to be included in the overall THE Impact assessment, an institution must be actively engaged in at least four SDGs, with SDG17 (Partnership for the Goals) being a mandatory one.
For the overall assessment, the resulting scores of each SDG in which the institution has chosen to engage are converted to a scale of 0–100. The range follows the earned score of all institutions assessed in that SDG (the best one getting 100, the least getting 0). This step is followed by a selection of the top 3 SDGs of each institution based on the highest scaled score assigned. The fourth SDG - SDG17, is mandatory.
The converted scores from these four SDGs enter the overall ranking in proportions according to the following scheme. As a very last step, an institution's final score in the most recent evaluation is calculated as an average of the total scores from the last two years' evaluations.
THE Impact indicators – research
- 27% of the score in each individual SDG comes from the research area
- The assessment is based on a mapping of publications to each SDG in Scopus; this mapping uses machine learning techniques and is described in more detail on the Elsevier website
- arameters such as Number of publications, FWCI, Paper views, Clinical citations, etc. enter the research evaluation
- For the research area, the university does not supply any input data of its own
THE Impact indicators - evidenced by records
- Indicators requiring evidence are yes/no questions, or a choice of options, or a combination of both
- For evidence (e.g. web link, embedded document), its relevance to the question and its public availability on the internet is being assessed
- Typically 3 points can be awarded for each question - up to 1 point if the university fully meets the objective of the question, up to 1 point for evidence being relevant, up to 1 point for the availability of the provided evidence publicly on the internet
- 1 extra point is awarded for regulations (guidelines, measures, etc.) that have been revised (or newly published) during the period of reference