The University of Helsinki is the only Finnish university to rank among the top 100 universities in the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, published today.The position this year was 76. The University has maintained a fairly stable position in the ranking throughout its 11-year history, oscillating between 69 and 76. Last year, the University placed at 73.

The newly appointed Rector Jukka Kola points out that university rankings are not an end in themselves. "We cannot completely disregard such rankings, however, since top international researchers and students do pay attention to them. The rankings may also impact potential funders and partners both in Finland and around the world," Kola estimates.

The University of Helsinki now places as the 5th among Nordic universities, 24th among European universities and 18th among non-English-language universities.

The University aims to rank among the 50 leading research universities in the world. Kola considers this a challenging goal for a university from a small language area. “There are 17,000 universities in the world, so being in the top 100 is already quite an achievement,” he points out.

American universities top the list

Four other Finnish universities ranked among the top 500. The universities of Oulu and Turku were in the 301-400 bracket, and the universities of Eastern Finland and Jyväskylä in the 401-500 bracket.

Harvard University in the United States again ranked as the best university in the world. The United States dominated the top ten, which included only two universities from the UK, Cambridge (5th) and Oxford (10th).

Text: Hannamaija Helander