It is a subject-specific, multidimensional system aimed at providing information for students, with its main emphasis on teaching, rather than research.

[1] Introduced in 1998 and published by the Centre for Higher Education in cooperation with Die Zeit, it is the most comprehensive ranking of its kind in Germany.

[2] The assessed criteria are not weighted, nor combined to produce an overall ranking; CHE argues that there would no theoretical nor an empirical basis for such an aggregated value.

The Centre for Higher Education considered those methods inadequate and started constructing their own ranking based on sound methodology and with involvement of the universities themselves.

[3] The CHE University Ranking has faced criticism for neither publishing the data set itself, nor a detailed scientific description of its methodology.

The ranking promotes inequality between universities and "the decoupling of research and teaching and thus contributes to the dismantling of the traditional strengths of the German higher education system".

[7] Some university departments, most notably in the fields of sociology, history, and media studies, have boycotted the ranking, leading to some subjects completely being excluded.