The annual QS World University Rankings have been published for 2024 – and Europe has claimed half of the top spots in the top 10.
The annual assessment – now in its 20th year – draws on the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers and the expert opinions of over 240,000 academic faculty and employers from across the globe.
Europe claimed five out of the top 10 positions, while English-speaking universities dominate the upper echelons of the rankings with perfect scores in categories such as academic reputation, employer reputation and faculty/student ratio.
In Europe, the top 10 universities for 2024 are the University of Cambridge (99.2) which was second worldwide; the University of Oxford (98.9), third worldwide; Imperial College of London (97.8), which took sixth place worldwide; ETH Zurich (93.9) 7th overall; and University College of London (92.4) which was 9th in the world.
Taking sixth place on the European continent is the University of Edinburgh in the UK (86.1), followed by the Université PSL Paris, France (85.8), the University of Manchester (82.2), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland (80.4) and the Technical University of Munich, Germany (80).
The overall score of the prestigious ranking is reached by considering nine crucial metrics: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, international students ratio, and, for the first time this year, international research network, employment outcome and sustainability.
The new indicators “reflect the shifts in higher education that have occurred over the past two decades, such as the growing importance of sustainability, employability, and research collaborations,” said Quacquarelli Symonds, the firm analyst behind the ranking.
