American universities unbeatable, Paris-Saclay first establishment in the EU

American universities unbeatable, Paris-Saclay first establishment in the EU

2024-08-15 07:18:00

The years go by and are similar for American universities, which claim the top spots in the world ranking of the best higher education institutions produced by the independent firm Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. In first place for the 22nd consecutive year (!), Harvard University is followed by two other American universities, Stanford and MIT, and Berkeley in 5th position. The 4th and 6th places are occupied by Cambridge and Oxford, in Great Britain. All the places in the Top 10 are taken by Anglo-Saxon universities, since four other American universities – Princeton, Caltech, Columbia and Chicago – follow.

French Tech Paris-Saclay, new capital of deeptech

Record for Paris-Saclay, first establishment in the EU

But France is not left behind. Twenty-five institutions from Voltaire’s country are in the top 1,000 places, including eighteen in the Top 500. Ranked in the Top 20 since 2020, the University of Paris-Saclay has gained three places to position itself in 12th position.

In fact, Paris-Saclay ” reached the best position recorded by a French establishment since the creation of the ranking “, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research welcomed in a press release.

Three other French institutions ranked in the Top 100 recorded a clear progression compared to 2023: Paris Sciences Lettres University (33rd; +8 places), Sorbonne University (41st; +5 places) and Paris Cité University (60th; +9 places). Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), particularly stands out by moving from 41st to 33rd place, thanks to the quality of its 11 institutions including Dauphine University, Mines Paris and the École Normale Supérieure (ENS). But while the French universities in the ranking are progressing, the new edition represents a decline (25 institutions in 2023 compared to 28 two years earlier).

Contested methodology

Since 2003, the Shanghai ranking has taken into account six criteria, including the number of Nobel and Fields Medals – considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics – among graduate students and professors, the number of researchers most cited in their discipline, or the number of publications in the journals Science and Nature.

Criteria based mainly on research and not on training or on the success rate of students, which fuels criticism of this annual ranking. As in previous editions, more than 2,500 institutions were examined to establish a ranking of the top 1,000.

In detail, the United States takes 8 places in the Top 10 and 16 in the Top 20, leaving 3 places to Great Britain and one to France. Switzerland places the University of Zurich in 21st position.

China only begins to show up in the rankings after the Top 20. Its first university in the ranking, Tsinghua, is in 22nd place. Next come the University of Peking (24th) and Zhejiang University (27th), while Canada places the University of Toronto in 26th place and Japan places the University of Tokyo in 28th place.