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ETH ZURICH

ETH Zurich again ranked top on continent

For the second time in less than a month, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) has been judged the top university in continental Europe.

ETH Zurich again ranked top on continent
Photo: ETH Zurich

In its annual world university rankings for 2012-13, the Times Higher Education magazine on Thursday identified ETH Zurich as the best university on the continent and the 12th best in the world, up from 15th the previous year.
   
“You don’t have too be Albert Einstein to study here — every Swiss citizen who has sat the Matura (matriculation) is eligible — but it doesn’t hurt,” the magazine says of the Swiss university famous for training scientists, mathematicians and engineers.

Einstein received his diploma at the university in 1901.

Heir to the Federal Polytechnic Institute, established in 1855, ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) Zurich now teaches around 17,000 students in 16 faculties.

In early September, it was ranked 13th in the world and best on the European continent by the QS World University Rankings.

The THE listing of 400 universities is dominated in the top 10 by American and British institutions, with the California Institute of Technology ranking first in the world for the second year in a row.

Other universities in the top five included Stanford (second), followed by Oxford, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Seven universities from Switzerland ranked in the top 200 list, with three in the top 100, including the Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL) ranked 40th, up from 46th a year previous, and the University of Zurich (89th, down from 61st).
 
With data crunching by Thomson Reuters, the THE rankings judge universities on their “core missions” — teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook — using 13 performance indicators.

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ETH ZURICH

Zurich’s ETH uni overtakes Cambridge in new global rankings

Zurich’s ETH technical institute has further consolidated its place as one of the world's best universities by leapfrogging the UK’s Cambridge University to take sixth place in the latest QS Quacquarelli Symonds global rankings for 2020.

Zurich's ETH uni overtakes Cambridge in new global rankings
Photo: ETH Zurich

The ranking is the highest yet achieved by ETH Zurich in the ranking for the study of 48 different subjects at the world’s universities.

In coming sixth, ETH is also the top-ranking university on continental Europe. In Europe as a whole, only the UK’s Oxford University scored higher – in fourth place overall.

Read also: 'Switzerland has third best university system in the world'

Meanwhile, the very top of the table was dominated by US universities, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) coming top, followed by Stanford University and Harvard University. In fifth was California Institute of Technology.

In terms of other Swiss universities, Lausanne’s EPFL technical institute also had a good result, moving up from 22nd place last year to 18th, while Zurich University was also in the QS global top 100 – in 76th place.

Europe's strongest research ecosystem

In a statement on Switzerland’s performance, QS analyst Ben Sowter said: “The Swiss higher education has consolidated its position as Europe’s strongest research ecosystem.”

He noted that Switzerland’s success was based on its international perspective and on its recognition of the need to invest in both human capital and research and development.

At the same time, the country’s very high standard of living made it an attractive destination for talent, he added.

Meanwhile, ETH President Joël Mesot on Wednesday reacted positively to the news of the institute’s QS ranking.

'A great result for Switzerland'

“We are very pleased about this great ranking. It provides yet more proof that ETH Zurich is on the right track in teaching, research and technology transfer,” Mesot said in a statement.

The ETH president also noted results of these rankings needed to be taken with caution.

Read also: 'A short-term L permit is almost useless for non-EU graduates of Swiss unis'

“Nevertheless, we can be very proud. Particularly of the fact that the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology – ETH Zurich and EPFL – have placed very highly in all the rankings for years.”

Mesot also warned Switzerland against resting on his laurels.

He said the country needed to “work actively to ensure that the good financial and political framework for the ETH Domain and for Switzerland as a science hub remain in place in the coming years”.

ETH beats Cambridge on citations per faculty

The QS rankings measure six performance indicators: academic reputation (weighted at 40 percent of the total result); employer reputation (10 percent), faculty/student ratio (20 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent) and international faculty ratio/international student ratio (5 percent each).

While ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge had similar scores for most of these metrics, ETH did substantially better than the UK university in terms of citation per faculty, scoring 98.4 out of 100 against 74.2 for Cambridge.

The citation per faculty indicator is determined by looking at the total number of citations received by all papers produced by an institution across a five-year period by the number of faculty members at that institution.

Papers in different fields are weighted differently to prevent life science papers skewing results. In 2015, the life sciences accounted for nearly half of all academic papers published, according to QS.

In the rival Times Higher Education World University Rankings, ETH Zurich is currently ranked as the 11th best university in the world.

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