More women leaders at the top on global universities ranking

More women are now at the very top of the world’s top universities. This is according to Times Higher Education THE, author of the annual World University Ranking.

Women now head 50 out of the world’s top 200 universities on the ranking. This is two more female leaders than last year.

The resignations of two very distinguished female leaders from two prestigious Ivy League universities was a massive set-back and was only offset by the increase in the number of female leaders in Europe

Ellie Bothwell, THE

In the United States, there has  been a slight decline compared to last year, from 16 to 15 top university leaders. This was partly due to two recent high profile resignations: Claudine Gay, who was president of Harvard University, stepped down in January after accusations of plagiarism and controversy following an appearance before a US Congress hearing. Elizabeth Magill, who was president of University of Pennsylvania, resigned after the same hearing. Claudine Gay and Elizabeth Magill were both replaced by men.

Upward trend

According to Times Higher Education’s rankings editor Ellie Bothwell, the high profile US resignations at the top of the league tables was a glitch in an otherwise upward trend:

»The resignations of two very distinguished female leaders from two prestigious Ivy League universities was a massive set-back and was only offset by the increase in the number of female leaders in Europe,« says Ellie Bothwell.

This year Europe had five more women leaders at the top of the top-ranked universities.

The Netherlands has 11 universities in the top 200. It has six, up from five last year, females leading higher education institutions in the country. Six of Germany’s 21 top universities have women leaders.

14 out of 27 countries no women

Of the 27 countries that feature universities in the top 200, 14 countries do not have any women leading their top institutions.

While progress has been made over the last nine years, which is encouraging, there is still a long way to go to get an equal number of male and female leaders

Ellie Bothwell, THE

This includes Denmark.

It has no women leaders at the very top of the three universities that are among the top 200 on the THE list (University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, Technical University of Denmark).

Of the remaining five Danish universities, only one has a female rector, namely Hanne Leth Andersen of Roskilde University.

THE started counting women leaders in the top 200 ranked universities in 2015. There are now 22 more women university leaders.

Referring to this global trend, Ellie Bothwell of Times Higher Education says that »while progress has been made over the last nine years, which is encouraging, there is still a long way to go to get an equal number of male and female leaders.«

The data was drawn from THE’s World University Rankings 2024.