Ranking of the best universities in the world 2020

In mid-August, this year's edition of the ranking of the best universities in the world, also known as the Shanghai List, has been published. Among the 1000 listed universities there are 8 from Poland. Harvard University won the ranking and the highest-ranked University from Poland was the University of Warsaw.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has been published since 2003. It includes 1000 universities from around the world. It is created on the basis of several indicators. The following elements are taken into account in the process of evaluation: the number of graduates, the number of employees who received the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal, the number of publications in the journals "Nature" or "Science", the number of the best-cited scientists (Highly Cited Researchers) and the publications found in selected citation indexes (Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index). The list also takes into account the size of achievements in relation to the size of the university.

The results of the ranking are presented in such a way that the exact position of the university is indicated only in the case of the top 100 universities in the world. Further items are grouped into 50's and then into 100's.

This year, once again, the best university in the world was Harvard University (USA). The next places were taken by Stanford University (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). The top 10 position of the ranking are dominated by universities from the USA, there are eight of them, the remaining two are universities from Great Britain. Moreover, in the top 20 universities, 15 are located in the USA. The first university that does not come from the USA or Great Britain is Paris-Saclay University (14th place), the second ten is closed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology from Zurich (Switzerland) . The first university from Asia - The University of Tokyo is ranked 26th.

The first university from Poland - the University of Warsaw was ranked between 301st and 400th place. This is an advance compared to the last year, when it was included in the group of universities 401-500. However, the analysis of the ranking results shows that this is not a big jump. In this ranking, as in the previous one, the University of Warsaw is on the border of the fourth and fifth hundred. The Jagiellonian University returned to the fifth hundred - places 401-500 - after jumping to the fourth hundred last year. Last year, the Jagiellonian University overtook the University of Warsaw. Now it has returned to second place among polish universities.

The AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków was ranked in the eighth hundred, while last year it was in the seventh. The ninth hundred went to: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Gdansk University of Technology (debut in the ranking) and Warsaw University of Technology. The Medical University of Silesia in Katowice and the Medical University of Warsaw were ranked in the last hundred. This year’s list does not include the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun and the Wroclaw University of Technology, which last year were between 901-1000 places, but dropped beyond 1000th place. 

The full results can be viewed here: http://www.shanghairanking.com

Source: The Academic Ranking of World Universities