The Center is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities,[1] that ranks American universities on nine different measures: Total Research, Federal Research, Endowment Assets, Annual Giving, National Academy Members, Faculty Awards, Doctorates Granted, Postdoctoral Appointees, and SAT/ACT range.
The center also produces other scholarly works on ranking and education quality.
[2] The raw data used by the researchers at The Center is made available to the public on the web.
[3] This ranking's influence within the academic community has been described as being "commonly regarded to be one of three indicators that reflect an institution's rank as a Tier One institution", the other two being the classification of a university with "very high research activity" by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and membership within the Association of American Universities.
[4] Elizabeth Capaldi, former executive vice president and provost of Arizona State University, co-directed The Center for Measuring University Performance with John Lombardi, former president of the Louisiana State University system.