The University of Oxford (UK) once again leads the global university ranking. In second place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ahead of Princeton (both USA) and Cambridge (UK), who shared third place. Harvard University (USA), which came third last year, is just behind in fifth place in the new ranking. Only universities from the USA (7) and the United Kingdom (3) made it into the top 10. ETH Zurich once again came out on top among continental European universities, in eleventh place. The top three places among German universities were taken by the Technical University of Munich (27), followed by Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (34) and the University of Heidelberg (49).
“The University of Passau has been participating in the THE Ranking for almost a decade and has been among the top 30 percent worldwide ever since, which we as a university family are very pleased about. This high level of consistency at an international level is the result of our joint work in the areas of research, teaching and knowledge transfer”, said Professor Ulrich Bartosch, President of the University of Passau. “The current THE result in the ‘Research Influence’ area shows a pleasing increase for the second time in a row. This shows that our researchers are constantly succeeding in publishing more papers, including in the world's most prestigious scientific journals.” The success of international cooperation efforts is also reflected in the concurrent rise in the figures for “international co-authorship/collaboration.” “In addition to research, we as the University of Passau can also positively note that, for the second time in a row, the improvements achieved in the staff-student ratio have been recognised.”
According to Bartosch, the results of the many years of participation in THE ranking once again provide strength and incentive to continue successfully implementing the strategic orientation of the University of Passau. “I would like to thank all members of our University community who constantly contribute to this with their commitment.”
The Times Higher Education Rankings, which are among the most influential worldwide university rankings, see an increasing number of participating universities every year. The rankings are based on a comparison of 18 different indicators from the areas of teaching, research environment, research quality, knowledge transfer and internationalisation. Some of the data, in particular those on the student body, staff figures and financial resources, are reported by the participating universities themselves, while others are obtained from academic databases and THE-conducted surveys among international academics.