ETH Zurich's in the leading group

The latest Shanghai Ranking  paints the same picture as in previous years. In the ranking of the world’s best universities, eight of the top 10 are American and two are British. These are followed by more US universities down to 19th place, where ETH Zurich appears as the best university in continental Europe. ETH has therefore moved up one place in comparison with the previous year. Other Swiss universities in the top 100 include the universities of Zurich (56; previous year 60), Geneva (66; previous year 69) and Basel (90; previous year 83). EPFL has also made it into the top 100 this year, occupying 96th place.

ETH Zurich also performs very well in terms of individual subjects: 14th place for Mathematics (previous year 32), 21st for Physics (previous year 17), 8th for Chemistry (previous year 5) and 15th for Computer Science (previous year 26). ETH comes 8th in the ranking for the fields of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, 36th for Engineering and 46th for Life Sciences. In this last field, the University of Zurich is the strongest Swiss institution, ranked 25th.

“As a whole, the changes are minor compared with the previous year,” says Urs Hugentobler from Finance & Controlling at ETH Zurich, who has analysed the rankings. Thomson Reuters’ new survey indicator, ‘Highly Cited Researchers’, has led to a change in the number of points scored by individual universities, with the result that ETH has moved up one place. “Positive developments can be seen in the fields of Science, Engineering and Life Sciences, and in the subjects of Computer Science, Mathematics and Economics.”

Harvard leads the way

According to this ranking, the world’s best university is Harvard University, followed by Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California-Berkeley. Cambridge University, in 5th position, is the highest ranked European university. The best Asian university is the University of Tokyo, ranked 21st.

The Shanghai Ranking has been published annually since 2003. It compares universities on the basis of six indicators, such as the number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals awarded to alumni and scientists employed by the universities. The number of highly cited researchers is also considered with research achievements rated on the basis of the number of papers published in Nature and Science and the number of articles cited in the multidisciplinary database Web of Science.