The new international ranking of higher education institutions dropped German laureates of previous years to the bottom and allowed the University of Göttingen to climb up.
A surge of outrage in the academic world and the universities themselves forced the publishers of Times Higher Education to reconsider their approach, and the new ranking, according to them, turned out to be 'the most transparent and reliable'. New data evaluation methods were used, and the sociological institutes involved in data collection were replaced.
However, like the previous one, the updated ranking speaks more about the quality of scientific work within the university rather than about the comfort and challenges of first-year students. Among the criteria considered by the THE ranking are the citation of the university's publications in specialized sources, the number of foreign researchers and students, funding methods, and British sociologists still judge the quality of teaching and research based on personal surveys.
The new THE methodology proved disadvantageous for leading German universities: the country's best universities, which had occupied relatively high positions in previous lists, fell in the updated ranking. The Technical University of Munich was previously 55th in the world, but now it is 101st; the Free University of Berlin dropped from 94th place out of the top two hundred; and only the relatively modest University of Göttingen succeeded. From 186th place in the old Times ranking, the oldest university in Lower Saxony climbed to an honorable 43rd place and became, according to the British version, the best university in Germany.
In total, among the top two hundred universities in the world, there are 14 German universities: the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich became 61st, Heidelberg University – 83rd, and most German universities are located in the lower part of the ranking. In addition to those listed above, the Times Higher Education list included the universities of Freiburg (132), Würzburg (168), Frankfurt am Main (172), Bielefeld (173), Berlin (Humboldt University) and Bonn (tied for 178th place), Aachen (RWTH Aachen University became 182nd), Konstanz (186), Karlsruhe (Institute of Technology – in 187th place) and Tübingen (189).
However controversial the results of such a classification may be, they are very important for the educational institutions themselves: the image of the university affects the number of new students, which in turn determines funding. Professors refer to these lists when planning their careers, and politicians are also not uninterested in the rankings of the world's leading universities.
The new evaluation methods did not change the stable primacy of American universities in the Times ranking: US institutions occupy the top five spots on the list, with Harvard leading.
Maxim Smirnov.
