Ranking of Universities in the EU, 2020

*This ranking is for the year 2020. See the newest, 2021, ranking here: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/10/30/ranking-of-universities-in-the-european-union-2021/

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
4	University of Copenhagen 🇩🇰	33	76	84	34	56.75
5	Sorbonne University 🇫🇷	39	83	87	43	63
6	University of Amsterdam 🇳🇱	101	61	66	40	67
7	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 🇧🇪	97	84	45	48	68.5
8	Utrecht University 🇳🇱	52	121	75	54	75.5
9	University of Helsinki 🇫🇮	74	104	98	86	90.5
10	Leiden University 🇳🇱	80	128	70	86	91
11	University of Groningen 🇳🇱	69	128	80	92	92.25
12	Ghent University 🇧🇪	66	135	103	85	97.25
13	Wageningen University & Research 🇳🇱	151	115	62	83	102.75
14	Uppsala University 🇸🇪	77	124	111	101	103.25
15	Erasmus University Rotterdam 🇳🇱	80	197	72	68	104.25
16	Aarhus University 🇩🇰	69	147	106	105	106.75
17	Lund University 🇸🇪	151	97	103	99	112.5
18	Delft University of Technology 🇳🇱	151	57	78	172	114.5
19	University of Freiburg 🇩🇪	101	175	83	168	131.75
20	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 🇳🇱	101	236	116	80	133.25

This is a ranking of the top 20 universities in the European Union 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 EU university 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, as shown above. The leftmost column shows the final rank (which is relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked along with the flag of the country in which it is located, 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. 

There were 4 institutions which were ranked on three of the four lists which averaged higher (by those three lists) than at least one university which was ranked having been averaged by all four lists. In some cases, had these averages remained given all four lists, the list would look significantly different. Further details:

• Karolinska Institute 🇸🇪 (43 average; unranked by QS) would have placed 1st.
• Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL) 🇫🇷 (~45 average; unranked USNWR) would have placed 2nd (counting Karolinska). (UPDATE: see * below for further evaluation.)
• Humboldt University of Berlin 🇩🇪 (93 average; unranked by ARWU — find further discussion about why that is here) would have placed 14 (counting Karolinska and PSL).
• Free University of Berlin 🇩🇪 (~120 average; unranked by ARWU — find further discussion about why that is via the same link as for Humboldt) would not have placed in the top 20 counting the three institutions above, however, its average is higher than those universities currently placing 19th and 20th (Freiburg and VU Amsterdam, respectively).

Additionally, one institution — Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin 🇩🇪 — was ranked such that it would have appeared in the top 20 (given the above additions: 10th), however, this was only based on its placement of 75 on a single ranking (THE).

Finally, some observations about the final ranking —

• Netherlands has the most intuitions in the top 20 in the EU, with 8.
• Germany has the second most, with 4, and the Nordic countries together have 5.
• Belgium and France are the only two countries with at least one university which makes the list outside of the aforementioned regions.
• The top 12 universities in the EU all average within the top 100 in the world.

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

* Since creating this list I’ve written an article looking at how USNWR ranks PSL constituents. Ultimately, based on the average of those constituents, PSL’s ranking would place outside the 20 appearing on this list. There are many caveats to this outcome, however. The full article can be found here.

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