Quacquarelli Symonds has been proposing The QS World University Rankings

using a methodology, and a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities has been published every year since 2004. Formerly The QS World University Rankings published in collaboration with Times Higher Education, and recognized as the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings (THE-QS World University Rankings). Times Higher Education split in order to create a new ranking methodology in 2010 (Times Higher Education World University Rankings) while QS assumed sole publication of the existing methodology
QS World University Ranks 2010