Rankings of universities in the European Union have been published by Quacquarelli Symonds and the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy (ARWU).
Rankings of Universities have been published by the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2024. [1] (without universities in countries outside the European Union)
American universities largely dominate the Shanghai Ranking, with almost half of the top 100 universities. The European Union comes second, with 19 universities in the top 100 of the Academic World University Rankings 2022 and 21 ranked universities, followed by the United Kingdom, said the European Commission, which has published a note on this classification in November 2021. Canada, Australia, China and Switzerland are also well represented in the top 100. [2]
Rankings of Universities have been published by QS World University Rankings. [3] (apply filter by location "Europe" without universities in countries outside the European Union)
Top 20 (2025) | Top 20 (2024) | University | Country |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Paris Sciences et Lettres University | France |
2 | 2 | Technical University of Munich | Germany |
3 | 7 | Polytechnic Institute of Paris | France |
4 | 3 | Delft University of Technology | Netherlands |
5 | 5 | University of Amsterdam | Netherlands |
6 | 4 | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich | Germany |
7 | 8 | KU Leuven | Belgium |
8 | 12 | Sorbonne University | France |
9 | 13 | Paris Saclay University | France |
10 | 11 | KTH Royal Institute of Technology | Sweden |
11 | 9 | Lund University | Sweden |
12 | 6 | Heidelberg University | Germany |
13 | 14 | Trinity College Dublin | Ireland |
14 | 17 | Free University of Berlin | Germany |
15 | 31 | RWTH Aachen University | Germany |
16 | 15 | University of Copenhagen | Denmark |
17 | 34 | Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | Germany |
18 | 10 | Uppsala University | Sweden |
19 | 19 | Utrecht University | Netherlands |
20 | 39 | Technical University of Denmark | Denmark |
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, research-oriented science and engineering institution. KAIST is considered to be one of the most prestigious universities in the nation. KAIST has been internationally accredited in business education, and hosts the Secretariat of the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools (AAPBS). KAIST has 10,504 full-time students and 1,342 faculty researchers and had a total budget of US$765 million in 2013, of which US$459 million was from research contracts.
Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and research of the city, comprising 9 faculties, 17 teaching hospitals, 18 performing arts centers, 27 schools, 106 departments, 340 research centers, and 400 laboratories.
East China Normal University (ECNU) is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal People's Government. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction.
The Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) is a public science and engineering university in Nan'gang, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. It is one of the top universities in China and now affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. The university is a member of the C9 League.
College and university rankings order higher education institutions based on various criteria, with factors differing depending on the specific ranking system. These rankings can be conducted at the national or international level, assessing institutions within a single country, within a specific geographical region, or worldwide. Rankings are typically conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics.
Three national rankings of universities in the United Kingdom are published annually by The Complete University Guide, The Guardian and jointly by The Times and The Sunday Times. Rankings have also been produced in the past by The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times. UK Universities also rank highly in global university rankings with 8 UK Universities ranking in the top 100 of all three major global rankings as of 2023/24: QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Copenhagen Business School often abbreviated and referred to as CBS, is a public university situated in Copenhagen, Denmark and is considered one of the most prestigious business schools in Western Europe and the world.
Xi'an Jiaotong University is a public university in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. It is a member of the C9 League.
Tongji University is a public university located in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction.
Ajou University (Korean: 아주대학교) is a private research university located in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. It was founded in 1973. Ajou University started as Ajou Engineering College with the aim of exchanging technology and culture through education between France government and South Korea government.
Beijing Normal University (BNU) is a public university in Beijing, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China, and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and the Beijing Municipal People's Government. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, making it the first global university ranking with multifarious indicators.
Osaka University, abbreviated as OU or Handai (阪大), is a national research university in Osaka, Japan. The university traces its roots back to Edo-era institutions Tekijuku (1838) and Kaitokudo (1724), and was officially established in 1931 as the sixth of the Imperial Universities in Japan, with two faculties: science and medicine. Following the post-war educational reform, it merged with three pre-war higher schools, reorganizing as a comprehensive university with five faculties: science, medicine, letters, law and economics, and engineering. After the merger with Osaka University of Foreign Studies in 2007, Osaka University became the largest national university in Japan by undergraduate enrollment.
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI is a public technical university in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1942 as the Moscow Mechanical Institute of Munitions, but was soon renamed the Moscow Mechanical Institute. Its original mission was to train skilled personnel for the Soviet military and Soviet atomic bomb project. It was renamed the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1953, which was its name until 2009.
Erasmus University Rotterdam is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christian humanist and theologian.
Curtin University Malaysia is the Malaysian campus of Curtin University, a public university based in Australia. It is the university's largest campus outside of Australia with a total area of 1,200-hectare (3,000-acre) comprising academic and residential blocks. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate programs in various fields of commerce, engineering, computational sciences, humanities and health sciences. It also offers foundational courses and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) among other higher degree by research programs. It is named after John Curtin, a prominent Prime Minister of Australia during World War II from 1941 to 1945.
In 2023, the university enrollment rate was 60.2% according to the Ministry of Education, representing 47 million mainland Chinese students enrolled in 4-year university and college degree programs in some 3,074 Chinese tertiary institutions. Entry into universities is intended to be meritocratic in which successful entry depends only on the result of the Gaokao entrance examination. Usually, 12 years of formal education is a prerequisite for entry into an undergraduate degree. Entry is not influenced or determined by sporting activities, extracurricular programs, donations, or alumni parents and siblings. Chinese education authorities have emphasized meritocracy as a social equalizer.
The QS World University Rankings is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE) magazine as Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings, inaugurated in 2004 to provide an independent source of comparative data about university performance. In 2009, the two organizations parted ways to produce independent university rankings, the QS World University Rankings and THE World University Rankings.
Nanjing University (NJU) is a public university in Jiangsu, China. It is affiliated and sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. The university is a member of the C9 League.
As of 2020, China had the world's second-highest number of top universities in several most cited international rankings including the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities and the Three University Missions Ranking.