Ratings

Aenert news. Ratings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an annual publication by the Times Higher Education magazine. Formerly, the publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) (2004-2009) and Thomson Reuters (2010 – 2013) to release a joint ranking. In 2014 however, the magazine signed an agreement with Elsevier to provide it with the data used in compiling its annual rankings.

Alongside a general ranking, the publication also includes rankings by subject and reputation, such as an engineering table, physical sciences or computer science. There are also special rankings comprising regional tables for universities in Asia, Latin America, and BRICS and emerging economies, which are ranked using separate criteria and weightings.

The engineering subject table has been compiled using the same performance indicators as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023, but the methodology has been adapted to suit the field of engineering. It includes the universities that are leading across the following disciplines: general engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, civil engineering and chemical engineering. This year’s table includes 1,306 universities, up from 1,188 last year.



Stanford University. Aenert photos

Despite the fact that the makeup of the engineering table is mostly unchanged, several countries have improved their representation in the top 300. Saudi Arabia, for example, now has seven universities included, up from four last year, and the UK now has 37, up from 34. The US, meanwhile, has 76 universities in the top 300 – nine less than last year.

Saudi Arabia’s national strategy, Vision 2030, is aimed at including at least five Saudi universities among the top 200 in international rankings. Vision 2030 wants to make the Saudi economy independent from oil revenues which it heavily relies on to date and achieve a more balanced financial model, which, as the authorities believe, can be reached through higher education.



Universität Zürich. Aenert photos

The declining number of US universities in top spots depicts a trend which can be seen in the league table for US institutions throughout all the rankings. This may be due to the fact that federal spending on research and development in the US has been reduced and there has occurred a major defunding of America’s great state universities. This, in turn, may be responsible for the decline of the US’ global competitiveness in research and innovation.

The top four universities in this year’s rankings are identical to last year. They are all located in the US and comprise Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Harvard University fully deserves the first position. It places a strong focus on every aspect of the engineering sciences. Its many research labs are dedicated to exploring, for example, the possibilities of energy resources and energy systems, energy and environmental impacts, solar geoengineering and geophysics. However, not only Harvard University invests a lot of resources into energy research. Berkeley Energy, an initiative launched by Berkeley University, is dedicated to providing sustainable energy projects to global emerging markets which are capable of giving sustainable benefits to people and the environment. MIT placed 4^th, meanwhile, is one of the leading universities in developing innovative energy solutions. The MIT Energy Initiative, for example, deals with problems arising, for example, from nuclear energy generation in a carbon-reduced world, the constrictions of the electric grid and energy storage, as well as sustainable harnessing of natural gas and coal or geothermal energy.



University of Cambridge. Library. Aenert photos

In total, among the top 10 six universities are situated in the US. The other four spots are occupied by Switzerland and the UK (2 entries) and Singapore. Switzerland’s ETH Zurich has improved one spot to 10^th place, and the UK’s University of Cambridge has lost two spots to seventh place. Elsewhere in the UK, the University of Oxford has climbed one rank to fifth place.

It is also worth noting that there are more Chinese universities in the rankings than in previous years. The Chinese university with the best score is Peking University in 12^th position. Overall, mainland China appears 82 times in the 2023 Engineering rankings – 21 more than in 2019, when it had 67 representatives.

By the Editorial Board