THE Ranking: Heidelberg 37th in the World’s Best 50 Universities

1 October 2015

Ruperto Carola moves from third to second place nationally

Having surged ahead by 33 spots compared to last year, Heidelberg University now ranks 37th in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2015/2016. The university also asserted its strong position within Germany as well, moving up to second place from third. For the first time since the THE Ranking began being published in 2010 (when Heidelberg ranked 83rd), Ruperto Carola is now among the world’s top 50 universities. The university also received excellent ratings in two other international rankings.

In this year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, or the Shanghai Ranking, Heidelberg ranked first in Germany and placed 46th internationally. The QS World University Ranking placed Ruperto Carola 66th internationally this year, making it second among universities in Germany. As best rated in Europe, Heidelberg University placed 10th in the Shanghai Ranking. On the European level it ranked 13th in the THE and 20th in the QS.

Another performance indicator also reflects Heidelberg University’s high standing. In the ranking list of the 40 highest publicly funded universities in Germany, Heidelberg is in second place with a total of nearly 275 million euros in DFG funds, according to the Funding Atlas 2015 of the German Research Foundation (DFG) published at the beginning of September.

The THE ranking, released on 30 September, is based on various indicators in five areas of performance, with teaching, research and citations assigned a 30% weighting each. Other areas analysed include internationalisation (worth 7.5%) and industry income (worth 2.5%). In addition to Heidelberg and Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (1st in Germany), seven other Germany universities are listed among the world’s top 100.