ETH Zurich remains among the best
ETH Zurich came in 11th place this year in the prestigious THE rankings, meaning it is once again the highest-ranking university outside the English-speaking world.
The third major university ranking this year, the external pageWorld University Ranking from Times Higher Education (THE), has once again ranked ETH Zurich among the best universities in the world. At 11th place, it has fallen by one position relative to last year but is still the best university in continental Europe by far, with the higher positions occupied entirely by top universities in England and the United States. Oxford once again tops the THE rankings in 2018.
ETH has improved its performance in the area of teaching, where influential factors include the faculty–student ratio and teaching reputation. However, according to the THE rankings, there has been a slight drop in the scores for research reputation and number of citations.
ETH President Lino Guzzella is delighted with the excellent classification: “It’s a huge achievement that ETH can also hold its ground within the leading group in the THE rankings. In a league contested by the best of the best, even small nuances can produce occasional shifts in ranking.” For him, this result provides further recognition of the outstanding team effort by the entire ETH community. “Although rankings never tell the whole story, they are certainly a yardstick and an affirmation of our work,” says Lino Guzzella.
Also outstanding in the other rankings
ETH Zurich also performed extremely well in the two other major university league tables already published this year: in the QS Rankings, ETH Zurich climbed three positions to reach seventh place, while in the Shanghai Ranking (ARWU Ranking), which is heavily weighted towards Nobel prizes awarded to current and former members of the university, ETH came in 19th place for the third time in a row.
The different methods and criteria used by the three rankings mean it is difficult to compare the results. “The fact that ETH has been in the vanguard of all three rankings for years is definitely a sign of our consistency,” says Lino Guzzella. Responsibility for this lies not only with the political environment, which provides good framework conditions, but also with ETH Zurich itself. “It’s essential that we keep on evolving in order to keep up with the best, some of whom are investing heavily. One of the ways we do this is via the ETH+ initiative, in which we support interdisciplinary projects and set up additional professorships in future-oriented disciplines.”
THE World Academic Summit: 2019 at ETH Zurich
The annual THE World University Ranking is announced as part of each year’s THE World Academic Summit. This year’s event in Singapore will be followed by one in Zurich in 2019, when ETH Zurich will host the next instalment of the world’s most important higher-education conference. Representatives from the world’s top universities, Nobel Prize winners and decision-makers from the worlds of politics and business will meet in Zurich from 10 to 12 September 2019 to debate the future of the global higher education landscape together.
Under the title ‘How Talent Thrives’, the World Academic Summit in Zurich will focus entirely on the topic of promoting talent. What do the talents of the future look like? What skills do they need to have? And how can universities create an environment that allows talent to thrive as much as possible? Lino Guzzella says: “I’m delighted that ETH will be the hub of the higher education world for three days in September 2019 and can make its contribution to the future promotion of talent at universities.”