ETH Zurich remains the best university in continental Europe, according to the World University Ranking, published by Times Higher Education. ETH Zurich was ranked eleventh worldwide in the 2024 ranking, the same position as in 2023.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the next Swiss university in the ranking moved up one position from last year to 32nd.
The global winner for 2024 was the University of Oxford, which has held first place for the ninth time in a row. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University followed in second and third places.
Such rankings are controversial. Trying to boil the quality of a university down to a single number is both challenging and simplistic. In March, the University of Zurich decided to withdraw from the process of being ranked. A key criticism was the dysfunctional incentives created by the KPIs behind the rankings.
ETH Zurich board chairman Michael Hengartner told SRF that universities are practically impossible to compare. It is difficult, if not impossible to reduce complex institutions such as universities to a single number, he said. They are far too varied in their form, tasks, and nature. It’s a bit like comparing and ranking animals in an ecosystem. Should a mouse be ranked behind an elephant because it is smaller?
The way organisations are structured can have a significant impact on ranking. For example, unlike well known foreign universities, Swiss universities are not selective. All high school graduates can enrol. This means there are more students per professor than at selective universities like Oxford and Harvard. This ratio drags Swiss universities down in the rankings. But Switzerland does not want to change this to improve the ranking of its universities. Having public universities that are open to all school graduates helps to reduce the educational elitism seen in the US and the UK where talent is more likely to overlooked. It may also contribute to making Switzerland the most inventive nation in the world – Switzerland consistently files the highest number of patents per capita.
In 2023, the per capita patent rate was 1,085 per million in Switzerland. The next closest nation was Sweden with 495 per million. The US (142) and the UK (87) were both well behind Switzerland. in 2023, Switzerland filed 60% more patents than the UK despite having a population 13% of its size – see data here.
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