American universities are still at the top of the Shanghai ranking published on Monday, in which four French establishments remain in the top 100.
With Harvard in first place for the 20th consecutive year, American universities still prance at the top of the Shanghai ranking published on Monday, in which four French establishments remain in the top 100. Anglo-Saxon establishments impose themselves as last year in the first ten places: eight American and two British universities occupy the top of the 2022 edition of this world ranking of the best institutions of higher education, carried out since 2003 by the independent firm Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.
Enthroned in first place, Harvard is once again ahead of its compatriot Stanford. This year, another American university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), took third place on the podium, relegating Britain’s Cambridge to fourth. Then there are the American universities Berkeley (5th) and Princeton (6th) then the British Oxford (7th). A total of 39 US universities are in the top 100.
The first non-Anglo-Saxon institution with its 16th place, the University of Paris-Saclay lost three places compared to the 2021 ranking. Three other French universities are in the 100 best in the world, having also fallen a few places compared to last year: the PSL University (Paris Science and Letters), which brings together several higher education establishments including the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), in 40th place, the Sorbonne (43rd) and the University of Paris Cité ( 78th). The Shanghai ranking takes into account six criteria, including the number of Nobel and Fields medals – considered the Nobel of mathematics – among graduate students and professors, the number of most cited researchers in their discipline or the number of publications in Science and Nature journals. This year, more than 2,500 establishments were examined to establish a ranking of the first 1,000.