University of Tartu continues rise in world university rankings

The Times Higher Education (THE), a British journal providing the most reliable university rankings in the world, has published the most recent ranking of the world’s best universities. For the first time, the University of Tartu has reached a position among the top 250. 

This year’s edition of THE rankings is the largest and most diverse to date, covering 1,799 universities from 104 countries and regions around the world. The University of Oxford tops the rankings for the seventh consecutive year, followed by Harvard University in the second place, and the University of Cambridge and Stanford University in the joint third. Besides three British universities, there are seven universities of the United States in the top 10. Universities from 15 countries are represented among the top 100. 

The University of Tartu has been in THE rankings since 2011. Over the last two years, it held the position in the 251–300 band and has risen to the 201–250 bracket this year. Among the University of Tartu’s partner universities, the highest-ranking are Tsinghua University (16^th) and University of Toronto (18^th), our European partners the Catholic University of Leuven ranks 42^nd and the University of Groningen 75^th. Two more Estonian universities are represented in the rankings: Tallinn University of Technology (601–800) and Tallinn University (1001–1200). 

According to Rector Toomas Asser, the high position in the rankings affirms the excellence of the University of Tartu’s academic community and the relevance of the objectives we have set. The fact that the research and higher education of Estonia’s national university is on par with the world’s top universities is a great value for the whole of Estonia, said Asser. “Although it is becoming more and more expensive to do research and teach students in today’s challenging world, and the funding of higher education is far from good, we will continue to work hard to stay among the world’s best universities,” Asser said. 

Over the years, the University of Tartu has performed well for its high number of citations per article, which is an important performance indicator in the THE rankings (accounting for 30% of the final result). In the new rankings, the University of Tartu holds the 115^th position among the world’s top universities for this indicator. 

THE has published university rankings since 2004, comparing world research universities across all core missions. In the ranking, THE takes into account 13 performance indicators which are grouped into five areas: the learning environment (30% of the final result), research (30%), research influence (30%), international outlook (7.5%) and industry income (2.5%). 

Read more about the methodology of the ranking on THE website.