SOAS Falls 37 Places in UK University Rankings

By Anna Hamerow, BA International Relations and Ismail Abdi, BA International Relations and Economics 28/10/2024

SOAS has been ranked the second least sustainable university in the UK by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025 which evaluates 131 universities nationwide. This year, the rankings include the People and Planet (P&P) metric,  drawn from the 2023/2024 P&P University League, which independently assesses universities against 14 different environmental and ethical criteria. This year, SOAS scored 13.9% for the P&P metric, plummeting 76 places from its previous position. 

Environmental indicators make up 45% of the overall ranking. These scores are based upon data taken directly from the HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) 2021-2022 Estates Management Record which have been used to measure the period from August 2022 to July 2023. The other 55% of the ranking is based on institutional policies regarding sustainable and ethical issues that affect all those involved with the university such as investment and banking policy, workers’ rights, and sustainable food policy. Notably, P&P gave SOAS a score of 0% in the ethical investment and banking category for their lack of an available ethical investment and banking policy during the period in which the rankings were carried out. SOAS has since made its investment portfolio publicly available. This poor performance in the investment and banking category mirrors demands made by the SOAS Liberated Zone for Gaza for the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation and denial of Palestinian rights. As of October 2024, SOAS no longer holds investments in Albemarle Corp, a US-based chemicals manufacturer involved in the production of weaponry sent to Israel from the US and used against Palestinians. However, SOAS still has £2,179,062 invested in Microsoft, a company with connections to the Israeli military and high-tech industry.

Responding to the low P&P ranking, SOAS provided the following statement: 

“As the first university to divest from fossil fuels in London…[committed] to becoming a net zero…by 2040, we believe the…ranking does not reflect our progress. When People and Planet surveyed universities for the league some of our policies and data were unavailable at that time. [T]he ranking does not always credit SOAS for having ethical policies that fall outside the date range…[The] ranking does not take into account some of the positive measures we are [presently] taking…We have recently created a sustainability group that will look at the People and Planet League ranking to ensure that SOAS receives recognition for our good practice.”

However, SOAS’s poor ranking is not exclusive to environmental and ethical performance. The Times’ University rankings recorded the second lowest for student experience and teaching quality—both measured using data collected by the National Student Survey (NSS) over the past two years. SOAS scored 65.6% for student experience and 73.9% for teaching quality. Only the Royal Agricultural University scored lower. Due to particularly poor performances across these categories, SOAS has fallen to a mediocre 65^th place in overall rankings by The Times’ University Guide for 2025, down 37 places from the previous year. While university rankings often face criticism for potential biases such as favouring reputation over research and teaching quality, they remain influential in attracting top students and academics.

In its statement challenging the P&P ranking, SOAS emphasised that some of its measures were published outside the “date range” that was used for the assessment. The rankings are comparative, reflecting how universities perform concerning one another based on the criteria set by the evaluators.  Whether or not the methodology and findings of these rankings are entirely accurate, SOAS has seen consistent double-digit declines across numerous categories and league tables.