The Open University

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 2,287 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United Kingdom).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Median earnings 5 years after graduating (LEO)

£29,900 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

21 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

1 src

Founders, billionaires and $30M+ alumni

not on the published top lists; estimated

Students (undergraduate / total)

117,695 / 124,580 src

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: 499. On strength alone: 992. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

11.1% (10.0%–12.3%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

1.0% (0.6%–1.3%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

180

All papers (fractional count)

1,618

International co-authored

58.3%

Open access

86.3%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

0 (0.00 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.