QS Rankings: ETH Zurich takes a top spot thanks to long-term investments in research and teaching

© ETH Zürich / Simon Zogg

ETH Zurich has moved up two positions to take seventh place in the current QS Rankings. This confirms its top position in continental Europe due in large part to its citations per faculty and academic reputation. For the first time, the rankings took into account the metrics graduates’ employment outcomes, sustainability and international research network.

ETH Zurich’s confirmation of its standing as one of the world’s best universities in numerous university rankings year in, year out is something that we have almost grown accustomed to. This status has, once again, been borne out by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, the most recent edition of which has just been published. Compared to the previous year, ETH Zurich has moved up two positions to take seventh place. University College London (UCL) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) now rank behind the Swiss university. As has been the case for several years, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claims the top spot. The University of Cambridge is in second place, now followed by the University of Oxford.

Improvement also due to new methodology

“It fills me with pride each year to witness ETH Zurich being placed alongside these prestigious institutions,” says ETH President Joël Mesot. He goes on: “Ranking among the best signifies two things for me – it is testimony to the fact that our long-​term investments in research and teaching are paying off, and serves as proof of my colleagues’ remarkable daily accomplishments. Even if rankings never reflect the whole truth and have to be treated with caution, as a university we have to take them seriously.”

ETH Zurich also benefits this year from a change in methodology. The QS Rankings evaluate several areas, each of which is weighted differently in the overall result. As in previous years, ETH Zurich achieves top scores of 98.9 out of 100 points for citations per faculty and 98.8 points for academic reputation. Both metrics have a particularly strong impact on the overall ranking, accounting for 20 and 30 percent respectively.