A new ranking by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University shows that many Old World schools are anything but old-fashioned
By Jennifer Fishbein, BusinessWeek, 26.9.07
Even if the U.S. dominates the top spots, Europe accounts for one-third of the leading 100 schools in a respected annual ranking of the world’s universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Shanghai grades institutions on the number of alumni and faculty winning Nobel Prizes in the sciences and Fields Medals in math, on the number of articles authored by faculty in selected scientific journals, and on overall academic performance in relation to the size of the school.
University of Cambridge
England
Global rank: 4
The name of this 800-year-old institution is synonymous with educational excellence—and no wonder. Cambridge has racked up 81 Nobel prize winners, more than any university in the world. Its illustrious alumni include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and John Maynard Keynes. And Cambridge isn’t resting on its laurels: It’s busily investing for future excellence, for example with a new $84.3 million cancer research center.
Oxford University
England
Global rank: 10
The oldest university in the English-speaking world, Oxford traces its roots to the 11th century, with alumni ranging from Sir Walter Raleigh to Rupert Murdoch. Its library is Britain’s second-largest, after the British Library, and its botanical garden is the most diverse in the world. Oxford grows patents as well as plants: A university subsidiary, Isis Innovation, markets technologies developed by Oxford researchers, filing more than 50 patent applications a year.
Imperial College London
England
Global rank: 23
Renowned for its medical, scientific, and technological breakthroughs, Imperial College boasts an average starting salary for graduates of $52,390, the highest of any British university. Research undertaken by its staff, which includes the personal physicians to the Queen and the Prime Minister, combats tropical and infectious diseases and tackles the dangers of global warming. This year, a graduation ceremony was held in Singapore to reflect the large number of students coming from Asia.
University College London
England
Global rank: 25
UCL was founded in 1826 to educate Catholics, Jews, and others barred from Britain’s two other universities at the time, Oxford and Cambridge, which accepted only members of the Church of England. The largest of more than 50 colleges and institutes that comprise the University of London, it specializes in biomedical and physical science research. Alumni include Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Graham Bell—and all four members of the band Coldplay.
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
Switzerland
Global rank: 27
Albert Einstein is one of 21 Nobel laureates among the alumni of this 150-year-old science and engineering school. Lately the institute has been shaking up the world of robotics. Researchers are working on a project to create robots to help homebound elderly people with household tasks. A prototype has been programmed to respond to verbal commands such as, “Make and bring the coffee.”
University of Paris 6
France
Global rank: 39
Officially called Pierre & Marie Curie University, this school near the Latin Quarter of Paris is one of Europe’s largest universities of science and medicine, with about 40,000 students and researchers. Its 180 laboratories study a vast array of subjects, ranging from astrophysics to the genetics of yeasts.
University of Utrecht
Netherlands
Global rank: 42
Founded in 695 by an Irish Catholic archbishop as a seminary for future priests and young nobility, Utrecht is now the Netherlands’ biggest university, with 28,000 students. It’s particularly strong in the sciences, granting degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, psychology, biomedical science, and pharmacy. The university lures fresh talent with its “high potential program,” offering five-year research grants for the most promising young Dutch minds.
University of Copenhagen
Denmark
Global rank: 46
Denmark’s largest university has more than 37,000 students and a history of research breakthroughs. Just this year, researchers discovered DNA from living bacteria over half a million years old—by far the oldest living organism ever found—which could lead to a better understanding of how cells age and whether life could exist on Mars. Last year, the university hosted the first-ever Chinese student job fair in Denmark, to entice more Chinese to study there.
University of Manchester
England
Global rank: 48
Manchester is one of Europe’s foremost centers for biomedical research and boasts strong science and engineering programs. Ernest Rutherford began his efforts to split the atom here when he became chair of the physics department in 1907. Other degree programs include midwifery, town and country planning, criminology, and textiles and paper science.
University of Paris-Sud 11
France
Global rank: 52
This science and technology university, comprising five campuses spread across the southern suburbs of Paris, hosts France’s largest academic center for pharmaceutical research. The university’s 120 laboratories are working on a variety of research subjects, including cancer, stem cells, and antibiotic resistance. The 200-acre main campus in Orsay includes woods and a botanical garden.
Karolinska Institute
Sweden
Global rank: 53 (tied)
This medical university in Stockholm, which administers the Nobel prizes in physiology and medicine, conducts research on subjects such as pregnancy-related diseases in poor countries and genetic predisposition to cancer. It recently founded the Stockholm Brain Institute with two other Swedish institutions, to treat and prevent disorders such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and attention-deficit disorder.
Ludwig Maximilians University
Germany
Global rank: 53 (tied)
This Munich-based university is Germany’s largest, with 47,000 students and 18 faculties in a variety of specialties including veterinary medicine and Protestant and Catholic theology. Science is its strong suit, with research centers focusing on topics including nanoscience, neuroscience, biodiversity, genetics, and theoretical physics.
University of Edinburgh
Scotland
Global rank: 53 (tied)
This top Scottish university draws acclaim for biomedical research, including work on stem cells that led to the cloning of Dolly the sheep and advances in T-cell immunotherapy for cancer patients. Founded in 1582, it has a long roster of impressive graduates. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle studied medicine here and is said to have based the character of Sherlock Holmes on one of his professors, Dr. Joseph Bell.
Technical University Munich
Germany
Global rank: 56
This university’s academic reach extends far beyond its core science and engineering programs. For example, it has a sports-science faculty, offering degrees in sports-injury prevention and rehabilitation and sports media, economics, and management. Students interested in industrial chemistry can study at the university’s institute in Singapore.
University of Zurich
Switzerland
Global rank: 58
Switzerland’s largest university, with 24,000 students, is known for its prowess in science and medicine, including its university hospital and veterinary hospital. Albert Einstein taught physics here from 1909 to 1911, and in 1996 an immunology professor, Rolf Zinkernagel, won a Nobel prize for his co-discovery of how the immune system distinguishes between infected and non-infected cells.
University of Bristol
England
Global rank: 62
Bristol runs one of the premier centers for the study of learning disabilities in Britain and is one of the few to offer degrees in deaf studies. The university has opened major research facilities nearly every year this decade, adding a science center and public affairs institute in 2007. One of its dormitories, Churchill Hall, served as a base for U.S. Army generals who planned the Normandy landings in 1944.
University of Heidelberg
Germany
Global rank: 65
Heidelberg’s reach extends all the way to Latin America, where it has a center for postgraduate study in Santiago, Chile, offering courses jointly with leading local institutions. The university’s Center for Social Investment, opened in 2006, examines the role of philanthropy and civil society, and its Center for Astronomy boasts 100 scientists in that field, the largest number at any German university.
Uppsala University
Sweden
Global rank: 66
This Swedish university offers a variety of unusual degrees, including masters in international humanitarian action, roads to democracy, and medical nuclide techniques. Founded in 1477, Uppsala is the oldest university in Scandinavia and home to Sweden’s oldest botanical garden, planted in 1655.
University of Oslo
Norway
Global rank: 69
Founded in 1811 when Norway was under Danish rule, the University of Oslo is the country’s oldest and largest academic institution, with 30,000 students. Its faculty of medicine is known for advances in neurobiology, transplantation immunology, nutritional science, and cancer research, and the university runs a medical center in Moscow. The University Museum of Cultural Heritage exhibits Viking ships unearthed in royal burial mounds.
University of Leiden
Netherlands
Global rank: 71
William of Orange founded this university in 1575 as a gift to the city for withstanding a long siege by the Spaniards. Strong in the social sciences and the arts but lacking faculties of economics and business, Leiden opened a school of management in 2002 only to shut it down four years later. Albert Einstein lectured here regularly throughout the 1920s. In 2005, his manuscript on the quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas was discovered in a university library.
(Source:businessweek.com)