In short: we are a volunteer project, run on a not-for-profit basis, and we never take money from institutions we rank. If our status ever changes, we will say so here at least 30 days in advance, and the rule against paying for rankings will stay in place.
Current status
RankingLab is an independent, non-commercial research project, operated on a not-for-profit basis. The work is carried out by volunteers, including the assessors who review evidence. RankingLab does not currently charge for any of its outputs: rankings, methodology documents and data are free to read and, under our licence, free to reuse.
"Not-for-profit basis" describes how we operate. It does not by itself mean that RankingLab is a registered charity or tax-exempt organization in any country. If that changes, we will state the registration details on this page.
What we accept
RankingLab may be funded only from the following sources:
- Founders' own contributions, in money or in kind, such as time, hosting and tools.
- Unrestricted donations and grants from individuals, foundations or public bodies, provided that the funder has no influence over methodology, assessments, scores, publication timing or results.
All funding is accepted on the condition that it is unrestricted with respect to editorial content. A funder may support RankingLab in general, or a defined non-editorial activity such as translation or website infrastructure, but may not direct what we assess or how.
What we never accept
- Money, gifts or in-kind support from any institution that we rank, assess or that is eligible for assessment.
- Money from foundations, companies or other bodies affiliated with such institutions.
- Funding conditioned on any result, position, inclusion, exclusion or timing.
- Advertising or sponsorship from ranked institutions.
These rules are also set out in the Independence & Conflict of Interest Policy.
Transparency
- RankingLab has no commercial activity: it sells nothing, carries no advertising and charges no one for anything.
- Smaller donors may remain anonymous, but we still check every donation against the rules above.
- If we ever discover that a donation breached this policy, we will return it.
How funding is kept separate from editorial work
- People involved in fundraising do not take part in scoring or editorial decisions about institutions connected to a funder.
- Funders receive no early access to results and no confidential information about assessments.
- Funding agreements, where they exist, include a clause confirming editorial independence.
Changes to our status
RankingLab operates on a not-for-profit basis at this stage. This may change at any time, for example if we establish a formal legal entity, register as a charity, or introduce paid services for users.
If our status or funding model changes:
- We will publish the change by updating this policy, with a new version number and effective date.
- We will give at least 30 days' notice on this page and on the Updates page before the change takes effect.
Whatever our future status, the independence rules survive any change. No institution will ever be able to pay for inclusion, position, assessment or early access, and RankingLab will not sell ranking improvement services to the institutions it ranks.
Use of funds
Funds are used to support the mission, for example hosting, data access, tools, translation, security, legal review and the reasonable expenses of volunteers. Volunteers are not paid for assessment work at this stage. Reimbursement of reasonable, documented expenses is not considered payment.
Questions
Questions about funding can be sent to hi@rankinglab.org. Concerns about a possible breach of this policy can be sent to hi@rankinglab.org.