The UR in Rankings

The Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE WUR) was published jointly with higher education data analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) from 2004 to 2009, but THE and QS ended their collaboration in 2009. Since 2010, THE has published the “THE World University Ranking” once a year. In this ranking universities worldwide are evaluated. It is one of the three most important international university rankings.

A total of 17 different indicators are used to assess the quality of teaching, the research environment, the quality of research, links with industry, and international outlook.

In addition, a subject ranking (“THE World University Rankings by Subject”) is published annually at a different time.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (external link, opens in a new window) (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, has published the world's top 1,000 universities every year since 2003. It is one of the three most important international rankings in the world. The ranking is based primarily on research indicators, including the number of highly cited scholars and the number of articles published in prestigious journals. Teaching staff and alumni of the institution who have won a Nobel Prize or Fields Medal are also included in the ranking.

Since 2017, the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (external link, opens in a new window) (GRAS) has also been published. This ranking also includes many research indicators, such as the normalized number of citations. As an indicator of the internationalization of universities, the ranking also includes the number of publications with institutions from at least two participating countries.

Since 2010, the British company Quacquarelli Symonds (external link, opens in a new window) (QS) has published an annual independent ranking, which is also one of the most important international rankings. The QS World University Ranking (external link, opens in a new window) places particular emphasis on reputation surveys in science and business. In addition, bibliometric indicators, such as citations per faculty, as well as indicators of internationalization, such as the proportion of international students, are included in the ranking.

QS also publishes an annual Subject Ranking (external link, opens in a new window), which analyzes reputation indicators as well as the H-index of researchers and citations per publication.

The CWTS Leiden Ranking is published by the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University (external link, opens in a new window)(The Netherlands) and focuses on the research performance of universities. It is based solely on bibliometric factors. Based on various indicators, a customized ranking list can be created, which can also be sorted according to size-related indicators.

The Leiden Ranking covers four main areas: research output, international cooperation, open access publications and the gender ratio of a university's publications.

The German Research Funding Atlas (external link, opens in a new window) (until 2012: DFG Funding Ranking) shows the total amount of publicly funded research in Germany. It is based on data from the PROFI (Project Funding Information System) database, which mainly covers federal funding in the civilian sector.

In the Funding Atlas, individual rankings are published for the university as a whole and for the four scientific fields of humanities and social sciences, life sciences, natural sciences, and engineering sciences. In addition, staff-related rankings are compiled for professors and scientists.

The CEWS ranking about gender equality aspects has been published every two years since 2001 by the Center of Excellence Women and Science (external link, opens in a new window). The ranking assesses the equality of women in science and academia based on a total of six criteria. Using data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, the proportion of women in various phases of academic careers (doctorates, post-doc phase, full-time academic and artistic staff and professorships) at universities is examined and gender equality trends are derived.

To learn more about equal opportunities at the University of Regensburg, please visit our "Equal Opportunities at the University of Regensburg" (external link, opens in a new window) page.