Yesterday, September 2, 2021, Times Higher Education published a new edition of one of the most famous university rankings – THE World University Rankings 2022.

Over 2,100 institutions from all over the world were assessed. Ultimately, 1,662 of them were included in the ranking. In addition, another 452 universities were acquired the “Reporter” status – these are universities that provided data for the evaluation process, but did not meet THE eligibility criteria to receive a rank.

In order to prepare the ranking, THE uses 13 performance indicators covering four main areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

The first place in the ranking – for the sixth year in a row – was taken by the University of Oxford. Two other places on the podium were also taken by American universities: California Institute of Technology and Harvard University, which took second place ex aequo.

The University of Oxford is also the leading institution in the research area. Harvard University, on the other hand, tops the teaching pillar, and Macau University of Science and Technology leads in the area of internationalization.

The USA is the most-represented country overall with 183 institutions in the ranking, and also the most represented in the top 200, where it has claimed 57 places. The number of American universities in this elite group, however, is declining in favor of institutions from other countries, mostly mainland China. Moreover, six new countries feature in the table compared with last year: Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Palestine and Tanzania.

The first university on the ranking list outside the US and UK is Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich – ETH Zürich, ranked at 15th place. Right behind the Swiss university, the first universities in the ranking located outside America and Europe tied for 16th place: Peking University and Tsinghua University, both located in China.

Poland is represented in the ranking by 23 universities. The leader among Polish universities is the Jagiellonian University, which ranked in the group of places 501-600. Right behind it, in the group 601-800, ranked the University of Warsaw.

The next in line Polish universities were placed in the 1001-1200 group. This group feature: Medical University of Bialystok, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Gdańsk University of Technology, Medical University of Warsaw, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the only private university in this group: SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The remaining 15 universities from Poland took places in the 1201+ group. All of them are public universities. Additionally, three universities obtained the “Reporter” status – Maritime University of Szczecin, SGH Warsaw School of Economics and WSB University. These universities have a good chance of entering the ranking in the next edition.

Looking at the individual criteria, the Medical University of Bialystok scored the highest in the area of education. The University of Warsaw is the leader in the research pillar, and the Jagiellonian University in terms of citations. In the area of outreach, the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow performed best, and the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities leads in internationalization.

This year’s edition of the ranking featured four more Polish universities than last year (seven counting those with the “Reporter” status). We observe the trend of the growing number of Polish universities in the THE rankings just recently: not so long ago, back in 2019 edition, there were only 12 Polish universities. Now, three editions later, there are almost twice as many. We can only wish our universities further successes and encourage your institution to try their hand at THE rankings!

You can check the detailed results of the ranking on the THE website. You will learn more about the ranking methodology, conditions for participation in the next edition and the summary of the results of Polish universities in THE World University Rankings 2022 during the free webinar, organized jointly by PCG Academia and its partner Times Higher Education, on October 21, 2021 at 1 p.m. More information and registration form available in the link below:

REGISTER