University of Tartu continues among the world’s 300 best universities in QS rankings

In the reputable QS World University Rankings published today, the University of Tartu holds the 300th place. Since 2014, the University of Tartu has risen in the ranking on five occasions and fallen on three, but all in all has improved its position by 161 places in nine years.

Compared to last year when the University of Tartu held its highest ranking ever, it has now fallen by 15 places. Nevertheless, during the past three years, the University of Tartu has remained among the world’s 300 best universities. This year, 145 new universities have been added to the ranking. The international consultation firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) considered 1,673 universities for this year’s ranking, and included 1,300 of them.

QS uses six indicators for ranking the universities: academic and employer reputation of the university (40% and 10% of the total, respectively), faculty-to-student ratio (20%), the impact of published work, i.e. citations per academic staff member (20%), and the ratio of international students and international staff (5% of the total each).

In the most recent edition of the QS rankings, the university has improved its position in terms of faculty-to-student ratio and the academic reputation of the university. The university has fallen in the ranking in terms of internationalisation.

“Internationalisation is a rather complicated task for the University of Tartu as the national university. In international rankings, we are competing with universities whose high percentage of international students and staff will be never achievable for us and it is not even our target,” said Vice Rector for Development of the University of Tartu Erik Puura. “Although such annual comparisons help us position our activities, for instance, by giving evidence of our good academic reputation, we do not set our priorities based on the rankings,” he added.

The full rankings are available on the QS World University Rankings website. The methodology has been described in more detail on the QS website.

Further information:
Lauri Randveer, Senior Specialist for International Cooperation, University of Tartu, 512 9996, lauri.randveer@ut.ee (questions about the indicators of the ranking)
Erik Puura, Vice Rector for Development of the University of Tartu, 506 9882, erik.puura@ut.ee (more general questions)