Released yesterday, the 2024 results rank the university at 206th place overall, up from 217th in 2023.
All eight New Zealand universities have gone up in the rankings, boosted by methodology changes including a new focus on sustainability — a metric for which Otago University ranked 22nd globally.
University director of strategy, analytics and reporting David Thomson said the changes, including the new 5% weighting given to sustainability, had a positive impact.
"This ... reflects Otago’s commitment to sustainability and follows on from our strong performance in the inaugural 2022 QS Sustainability Rankings in which Otago was ranked 47 in the world," he said.
The university was pleased with the new results, noting it maintained its place as the second highest-ranked university in New Zealand.
The climb was "a modest but welcome improvement".
This comes as the university is set to make staff cuts as part of a bid to save $60 million, a situation that appears largely unchanged by the Government’s recent announcement of an extra $21 million in funding for the institution over the next two years.
The university has fallen in the QS rankings each year since 2018, when it was ranked 151st.
In the 2019 rankings, it fell to 175th place, and came in at 176th the next year.
By 2018 it had fallen to 184th, and in the 2022 rankings it came 194th.
Mr Thomson said the rankings showed the institution was continuing to perform adequately despite ongoing underfunding.
However, the latest assessment was based on metrics gathered by QS that related almost entirely to 2022 and prior years, not to 2023, he said.
"Prior to recent years in which the government funding gap grew due to increasing rates of inflation not being matched by funding increases, Otago placed inside the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings."
Employment outcomes and international research networks were also new metrics introduced in this year, each weighted at 5% of the overall ranking.
The Otago University ranked 44th for its international faculty ratio, 159th for employment outcomes, and 178th for its academic reputation.
Other metrics scored lower, with the institution ranking 256th for citations per faculty, 359th for employer reputation, 391st for its international research network and 428th for its international student ratio.
The faculty to student ratio lagged far behind at 701+.
Overall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked first for the 12th year in a row, while the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford were second and third respectively.
The University of Auckland was in top place among New Zealand institutions, ranking 68th overall and ninth for sustainability.
Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said the new methodology was a better reflection of what most students cared about when choosing where to study.
The results were not surprising given the changes.
"The big challenge now will be maintaining these rankings.
"Under the previous system our rankings were slowly dropping as a consequence of a fall in funding per student," he said.
