JMU Würzburg shines: 220th place in the international university ranking!

JMU Würzburg shines: 220th place in the international university ranking!

The Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (JMU) has positioned itself impressively in the latest edition of the renowned Shanghai rankings. With 220th place worldwide, the JMU is in third place among Bavarian universities and is one of the top 15 universities nationwide. University President Paul Pauli describes the rankings as confirmation of the JMU's research strength. The Shanghai Ranking, which has been produced by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy since 2009, evaluates the research performance of over 2,500 universities, of which the top 1,000 are published annually.

The ranking was first launched in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The evaluation criteria are demanding and based on six objective indicators. These include the number of alumni and people currently employed at the university who have received high-ranking awards such as the Nobel Prize. In addition, publications in the scientific journals Nature and Science as well as the total number of scientific publications are also taken into account.

Evaluation criteria of the Shanghai ranking

The ranking indicators include:

• Anzahl der Alumni, die hochrangige Preise erhalten haben
• Anzahl der aktuell an der Universität beschäftigten Personen mit hochrangigen Preisen
• Anzahl der Artikel in den Journals von Nature und Science
• Gesamtzahl der wissenschaftlichen Publikationen
• Anzahl der häufig zitierten Forschenden
• Verhältnis der genannten Indikatoren zum wissenschaftlichen Personal der Universität

The Shanghai Ranking stands in the context of other international assessments, such as the QS World University Ranking. The latter has been carried out since 2004 and analyzes the quality of 1,501 universities. The main criteria include the citation frequency of studies and the supervision ratio between teachers and students. The rankings of the renowned American and British universities remain dominant.

In the current QS ranking, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has occupied first place for 14 years, followed by Imperial College London and Stanford University, which is now in third place. In Germany, the 48 universities represented also include the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 22nd place and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in 58th place.

The JMU not only impressed in the Shanghai ranking, but also joined the list of outstanding German universities, which further underlines the university's international importance and research strength. The positive development of German universities is also reflected in the other rankings, in which 26 universities have improved their ranking, while 17 have fallen back in the rankings.