From its first issue, on 15 October 1971, until 2008,
The Times Higher Education Supplement (
The Thes) was published weekly in newspaper format and was born out of its sister paper, the
Times Educational Supplement (TES), and affiliated with
The Times newspaper. Its founding editor,
Brian MacArthur, recruited a team of talented young reporters to chart the expanding higher education sector, including
Peter Hennessy (now Lord Hennessy),
David Henke, David Walker,
Christopher Hitchens, and
Peter Scott, who was appointed editor in 1976. Scott remained editor until 1992, leading a team of journalists that included
Robin McKie,
John O'Leary (who would later return as editor after a period at
The Times), and
Peter David. Other staff reporters in this period included Ngaio Crequer and
Judith Judd.
Brian Morton,
Lynne Truss and
Olga Wojtas have established careers as writers. In the 1980s,
The Thes pioneered comparisons of the reputations of university departments through peer review conducted by consulting academics in the field under scrutiny. Managed by O'Leary, this become the foundation for the league table of United Kingdom universities that was launched under his stewardship as Education Editor of
The Times.
The Thes was a supporter of the then "binary divide" between the established universities and the polytechnics and the links between the latter and the local education authorities, which ended with the
Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The magazine featured a fictional satirical column written by
Laurie Taylor, the "Poppletonian", which reflects on life at the fictional Poppleton University. Under Scott's editorship, it stood apart from other titles in Rupert Murdoch's News International in endorsing the Labour Party at successive General Elections. In 1992 Scott left for academe and was replaced by
Auriol Stevens, who was editor until 2002. Under her editorship
The Thes strongly supported the case for undergraduate students to contribute to their higher education through
tuition fees.
The Thes was the first of Rupert Murdoch's UK titles to put its text, archive and job ads on line, although the text was at that time behind a subscription wall. Stevens described the move as the "Murdoch empire's canary in the coal mine". With its elder sister publication, the Times Educational Supplement, it was acquired by venture capital group Exponent in October 2005 for £205m. On 10 January 2008, it was relaunched as a magazine, published by TES Global. The magazine is edited by John Gill. Phil Baty is the
editor-at-large, and is responsible for international coverage. He is also the editor of the magazine's World University Rankings. In 2011,
Times Higher Education was awarded the titles of "Weekly Business Magazine of the Year" and "Media Business Brand of the Year" by the
Professional Publishers Association. In 2019, it was widely rumoured that
Elsevier, who already partners with
THE in order to compile their university rankings, was planning to take over
Times Higher Education completely. In August 2020,
Times Higher Education announced partnerships with recruitment agency SI-UK and accommodation provider Casita, signalling its entry into the overseas student recruitment and student housing markets. On 11 September 2020, Netherlands-based
Studyportals announced that it had inked an agreement with
Times Higher Education, which will see the Times Higher Education website's student visitors directed to the Studyportals student recruitment platform whenever students look into courses run by universities that
THE ranks in its World University Rankings. In 2022,
Times Higher Education acquired the
Inside Higher Education, an online higher-ed publication company from Quad Partners, a
private equity firm. In 2023, it acquired
Poets&Quants, an American graduate business education website. In 2024, they signed an agreement with the country of Hungary's Culture and Innovation Ministry which oversees Hungarian higher education for THE to "give an accent to Hungary’s higher education excellence at an international level." State secretary
Balázs Hankó, who oversees higher education, said "the goal was to have a Hungarian university among the world’s 100 best by 2030, and at least three among Europe’s top 100." ==University rankings==