Published by S. N. McGannon, Feb. 18, 2021

This is a ranking of the top 25 universities in Germany ranked relative to each other by average world rank for the year 2020-2021. 

The ranking was created by using metadata sourced from the four prominent rankings of world universities (each ranking released in 2020): Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), and U.S. News & World Report (USNWR).

Rank was checked on each list for every university in Germany ranked on each of the lists. Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on. 

Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown below (Table 1.). The leftmost column shows the final relative placement (relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World Rank”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university. 

A final note about the table below: because of a dispute regarding Nobel prize attribution, ARWU does not rank Humboldt University Berlin or Free University of Berlin. However, because both universities average so highly between the other three rankings, I previously made the choice to display these universities with their three-rank average among the ranked universities in the place they would occupy were the three-rank average their overall average (see some previous explanation here; and for reference see here). I again chose to undertake this procedure for this ranking. Their rank is simply listed as ‘(NR)’ ( = not ranked). Additionally, another university also unranked by ARWU (University of Mannheim) ends up in the top 25 under this procedure. While I don’t know why ARWU doesn’t rank this university, because it is the only other university which averages in the top 25 when its three-rank average is taken as its average, I have included this university in its would-be place as well.

Some observations —

• The original ranking which best predicts the summed average is USNWR.
• The original ranking which most poorly predicts the summed average is QS.
• QS is the only ranking which fails to place LMU Munich 1st.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Rank	Institution	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
1	LMU Munich	51	63	32	46	48
2	Heidelberg University	57	64	42	54	54.25
3	Technical University of Munich	54	50	41	76	55.25
(NR)	Humboldt University Berlin	(NR)	117	80	82	93
(NR)	Free University of Berlin	(NR)	130	118	111	~120
4	University of Freiburg	101	175	83	168	131.75
5	University of Bonn	87	240	114	114	138.75
6=	University of Tuebingen	151	175	78	180	146
6=	University of Goettingen	101	195	130	158	146
8	RWTH Aachen University	201	145	107	184	159.25
9	Technical University of Dresden	201	173	152	186	178
10	University of Hamburg	201	228	135	155	179.75
11	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	201	131	201	197	182.5
12	University of Cologne	151	282	145	232	202.5
13	Goethe University Frankfurt	101	311	251	222	221.25
14	Technical University of Berlin	301	148	140	338	231.75
15	University of Muenster	151	356	195	236	234.5
16	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	201	317	198	238	238.5
17	University of Wuerzburg	201	437	140	186	241
18	University of Ulm	301	344	140	316	275.25
19	University of Mainz	201	403	301	214	279.75
20	University of Kiel	201	501	251	274	306.75
21	University of Jena	401	323	251	395	342.5
22	Ruhr University Bochum	401	439	251	372	365.75
23	Technical University of Darmstadt	401	267	301	543	378
(NR)	University of Mannheim	(NR)	307	140	706	~384
24	University of Duisburg-Essen	301	751	201	285	384.5
25	University of Stuttgart	301	333	351	564	387.25

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