Four Swiss universities have been ranked as part of the 100 best universities in the world, according to the ShanghaiRanking released this week. ETH in Zurich was ranked the highest and was named the second best university outside the UK and US.

Over 2.500 universities ranked by quality of teaching

To determine the best place to study in 2022, the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy firm analysed 2.500 universities from across the globe. To make it into the top 1.000, each school was ranked by six key indicators in order to determine the quality of teaching on offer. These are:

• Number of Nobel Price and Field Medal-winning staff and alumni,
• Number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate
• Number of articles published in Nature and Science journals
• Per capita performance of the university
• Number of articles indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index on the Web of Science platform

Each university is then given a score out of 100 based on these factors. Unlike the QS university study, the ShanghaiRanking focuses on academic achievement over student life and experience.

UK and US continue to dominate university ranking

This year’s ranking, much like last year’s, was dominated by universities from the United Kingdom and the United States. Harvard University claimed the top spot for the 20th time and the fifth time in a row. The rest of the top 10 read as follows:

1. Havard University
2. Stanford University
3. MIT
4. University of Cambridge
5. University of California, Berkeley
6. Princeton University
7. University of Oxford
8. Columbia University
9. California Institute of Technology
10. University of Chicago

Once again, Harvard was given top marks for its quality of teaching, earning a perfect score of 100. The ShanghaiRanking also found that the Ivy League school had 8 fields of study where they were considered the best in the world.

ETH Zurich the best university in Switzerland

In the ranking for 2022, ETH Zurich faired the best out of all the Swiss universities, scoring 45,6 points out of 100 and earning 20th place. It amounted to the second highest ranking for a university outside the UK or US, the first being Paris-Saclay University in 16th. ETH’s top subjects were found to be civil engineering, water resources and environmental science and engineering.

ETH was followed on the list by the Universities of Zurich (59th), Geneva (62nd) and Basel (83rd). The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne sadly fell out of the list in 2022, after coming 91st in 2021. Only nine of the 11 universities in Switzerland were ranked this year, with seven coming in the top 150:

• 20. ETH Zurich
• 59. University of Zurich
• 62. University of Geneva
• 83. University of Basel
• 101-150. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
• 101-150. University of Bern
• 101-150. University of Lausanne
• 501-600. University of Italian Switzerland
• 501-600. University of Fribourg

For more information about how the ranking was calculated, check out the ShanghaiConsultancy website.