Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is a British company specialising in education and study abroad. The company was founded in 1990 by Nunzio Quacquarelli. Today, QS has over 250 employees and operates globally from offices in London (head office in Hampstead, North London); New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., United States; Paris, France; Singapore; Stuttgart, Germany; Sydney, Australia; Shanghai, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Alicante, Spain and Mumbai, India. QS provides services for undergraduates, graduates, Masters, Ph.D., MBA, and Executive MBA candidates. It offers publications and events to broaden the scope of study abroad. QS runs events and produces guides for postgraduates across 35 countries.
QS has published various university rankings.
At first, it had cooperated with the Times Higher Education to release annual world university rankings, the THE-QS World University Rankings, since 2004 and was the data provider of the rankings. However, it ended its partnership with Times after the release of their 2009 rankings and both have worked out their own rankings afterward with QS using the same methodology while Times which has then cooperated with Thomson Reuters using an adjusted one. Now, the rankings published by QS are known as the QS World University Rankings.