The University of Gothenburg keeps climbing in Times Higher Education ranking
While most other Swedish higher education institutions find themselves falling in British magazine Times Higher Education's (THE) annual ranking of academic institutions around the globe, the University of Gothenburg continues to climb. This year THE ranks the University of Gothenburg as No. 170 in the world, up 10 notches from last year.
The positions of Swedish higher education institutions in Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2010–2016.
While most other Swedish higher education institutions find themselves falling in British magazine Times Higher Education’s (THE) annual ranking of academic institutions around the globe, the University of Gothenburg continues to climb. This year THE ranks the University of Gothenburg as No. 170 in the world, up 10 notches from last year.
THE has presented its prestigious ranking of the world’s universities since 2004. Last year, the University of Gothenburg climbed a remarkable 62 places, and this year the trend continues with a hike of another ten spots.
Advances in citation activity
The ranking is based on 13 indicators divided into five differently weighted groups: industry income, research, international mix, teaching and citations. The University of Gothenburg’s advancement this year can mainly be attributed to an improved citation indicator.
New this year is that some monographs and anthologies have become included in the citation database, and this is a change that may benefit the University of Gothenburg. The publication of books is particularly common in the humanities and social sciences, which are areas where the University of Gothenburg is relatively big.
‘Another possible reason behind the progress is that the University of Gothenburg was stronger in terms of citations 2011−2015, which was the period used for this year’s ranking, than in 2010−2014, which was the period used last year,’ says Magnus MacHale-Gunnarsson, analyst at the University of Gothenburg.
Other universities slipping
Several other Swedish higher education institutions have fallen in the ranking compared with last year: Uppsala University slipped 12 places, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences 30 places and Linköping University a full 53. Karolinska Institutet remains in 28th place.
No. 1 on the list is Oxford University (ranked second last year), followed by California Institute of Technology (top ranked last year) and Stanford, which remains in third place. Six of the top 10 schools are US universities.