Switzerland leads the way, and Russia remains on the rise

Switzerland’s ETH Zurich remains the world’s number-one institution for three subjects – geology, geophysics, and earth & marine sciences – more than any other continental European institution in the 11th edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

QS also find that, based on the number of programmes ranking among the global top 10 for their subject (29, up from 26 in 2020 and 22 in 2019), Switzerland is the world’s third-best higher education system.

Russia remains on the rise. Over the last four years, the share of Russian departments ranked among the global top 100 has doubled.

As recently as 2018’s edition of the rankings, QS only included 124 Russian university departments in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, with 22 in the top 100 for their academic discipline. Three editions later, there are now 213 Russian university departments ranked, and 47 place among the global top 100.

Ben Sowter, senior vice president of professional services at QS, said the latest rankings continues to demonstrate that the careful strategic support offered by the Russian government to its universities is facilitating their increasing presence on the global stage.

“Over the past decade, Russia has taken many of the steps necessary to make a higher education system world-class.

“It has sought to support early-career scientists, who will drive the next generation of Russian knowledge production. It has placed priority attention on previously neglected areas, including climate and environmental research. It has emphasised the most important research fields of the future: genomics, robotics, materials research.

“And, most importantly, it has empowered its universities by directing funding to high-potential institutions. Now, we are seeing the positive results of these sensible decisions in our global ranking exercise. While there is still work to be done – for example, Russia still currently has fewer researchers per 1,000 people than other large nations – these results indicate that Russia is on track to become one of higher education’s success stories.”

There is a continuing decrease in the overall number of German departments ranking among the global top 50 in their academic discipline. In 2019’s edition of the QS World University Rankings, 97 German programmes achieved top-50 places. This number dropped to 95 in 2020, and has dropped again, to 92 in 2021.

But the German higher education sector possesses particular strengths in the arts and humanities. It has four of the world’s top 20 universities for classics & ancient history: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (fifth), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (eighth), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (16th) and Freie Universität Berlin (19th).

Also, three of the world’s top-20 philosophy programmes are offered by German institutions: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (14th), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (15th) and Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (19th, up two places).

Three of the top 20 places in QS’s theology, divinity & religious studies table are occupied by German programmes: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (10th), Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (15th, up 10 places) and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (20th, up one place).

Sowter said Germany’s scientific and technological departments are benefiting from their close links to the country’s industrial presence.

“With German industrial research and development spending having increased by 4.8% in a single year alone – 2017-18 – the country’s top academic faculty enjoy the opportunity to engage, frictionlessly, with well-funded corporate partners.

“With a number of Germany’s top-ranked institutions also joining the European University Networks programme, we also anticipate the country’s research contributions improving as a result of its highly international outlook.”

France has two university departments ranked second in the world for their subject. They are INSEAD, whose business & management studies programme is topped only by Harvard Business School; and Sciences Po Paris, which ranks second for politics & international studies.

But, according to Sowter, there are significant challenges ahead for French universities.

“The long-standing issues remain: reducing class sizes, providing effective online learning experiences, and maintaining research and development spending in a difficult economic environment.”

Two Dutch university programmes have ranked as the world’s best place to study their academic discipline: Wageningen University has been named the world’s best university for the study of agriculture & forestry, while the University of Amsterdam is the global number one in QS’s communication & media studies ranking.

Italian universities have been among the world leaders in leading the research response to COVID-19. Elsevier’s Scopus database, which QS uses to track university research production, identifies Italy as the world’s fourth-largest contributor to COVID-related research output.

The results indicate that the Italian higher education sector excels more broadly in the arts & humanities and in the social sciences and management disciplines. Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi is the world’s seventh-best university for business & management studies, and ranks 14th for accounting & finance.

QS also find that Spain’s universities achieve their strongest results in subjects from the social sciences and management, including business & management, hospitality & leisure management, and library & information management.

Ireland’s higher education sector has increased its number of programmes ranked among the global top 200 for their subject to 86, up from 80 in 2020, despite operating in an extremely challenging landscape, according to QS spokesman Jack Moran.

“While most of the higher education systems that have recorded representational or performance improvements – Russia, Malaysia, China, Singapore – have enjoyed significant levels of government financial support, Irish universities have been operating within budgetary constraints for over a decade now. It is therefore all the more impressive that Ireland remains a repository of top-class tertiary education, especially in the arts, humanities, and nursing.”

Across the 51 subject rankings, 21 Spanish programmes place among the global top 50 for their academic discipline: two more than in last year’s edition of the tables. Nine of these are in social-scientific disciplines, with three Spanish institutions among the top 50 for business & management.

Conversely, only four Spanish programmes can be found among the top 50 of QS’s life sciences & medicine tables, and there is no Spanish university among the top 50 of any of QS’s nine natural sciences tables.