University rankings, USI among the best 300 universities according to Times Higher Education

The latest rankings of the world's top universities by Times Higher Education (THE) have placed USI in the 251-300 range out of 1904 universities. At a national level, USI ranks 8th. The results are especially promising in areas of internationality and research impact.

The 2024 edition of Times Higher Education's World University Rankings (WUR) comes with a new evaluation methodology that includes five areas of assessment: Teaching, Research environment, Research quality, International outlook, and Industry. The first three areas, which focus on teaching and research, make up about 90% of the evaluation. The new methodology replaces the one used for the past decade, rendering comparisons with previous editions of WUR irrelevant.

Università della Svizzera italiana ranks 3rd in the world for International Outlook, confirming the excellent results on internationality that have emerged in other rankings and analyses. Additionally, USI secures a place in the top 25% of universities globally for its Teaching, Research, and Industry quality.

The complete ranking is available on the Times Higher Education website. In first place is the University of Oxford, followed by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among Swiss universities, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich holds 11th place while the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne is 33rd.

"These results confirm the quality of the teaching and research offered at USI, and the credit goes to the faculty, researchers and administrative and technical staff," said Rector Luisa Lambertini. "USI is a young and small university and does not yet enjoy the reputation of larger and better-known universities, an aspect that penalises us in the overall ranking, but we are confident that by continuing along the path of quality, USI will increasingly make a name for itself internationally as well".

About rankings

University rankings are created through standardised data collection procedures that measure various indicators to compare the quality and performance of various universities. These rankings are compiled annually through the analysis of a large amount of data. The indicators used in these rankings include bibliometric data (citations and references in scientific publications), the impact of universities' research, the quality of teaching, and their international outlook. The results of these rankings may vary due to differences in the indicators used and their relative weighting in the ranking calculation.
Although Università della Svizzera italiana has achieved significant rankings in recent years, especially in relation to its age and size, the results should be viewed with caution, as they only represent one of many indicators of a university's quality.