World-class Universities, a Dynamic Multivariate Analysis Through International Rankings

International rankings have achieved great prestige as an instrument for measuring university excellence as a quality assurance mechanism. Thus, this research aims to observe the behavior of the best-positioned universities in these rankings, as well as the trajectories of indicators and institutions. In fact, the Top-15 universities of ARWU, THE, and QS were selected, and an analysis was carried out using the Dynamic Biplot technique, which allows the study of the relationship between a set of multivariate data developed on more than one occasion. The results prove that world-class universities show different characteristics and trajectories when analyzed multivariate and dynamically. The ranking indicators also reveal different correlations that may affect the final ranking.