Finnish universities are among the world’s best

The QS ranking is considered one of the most important university rankings in the world. It measures universities based on six metrics with different weights: academic reputation (40 per cent), citations per faculty (20 per cent), faculty/student ratio (20 per cent), employer reputation (10 per cent) and internationality (10 per cent).

The University of Helsinki’s ranking is the best among Finnish universities, fourth best among Nordic ones and 36th best in Europe. The University of Copenhagen clinched the best Nordic spot at 72.

“We’re very glad and satisfied with the ranking, since there are almost 20 000 higher education institutions in the world. This means that globally the University of Helsinki is ranked among the top 0.5 per cent,” said Dr. Jari Niemelä, rector of the University of Helsinki.

The University of Helsinki bettered its performance on the academic and employer reputation indicators, as well as in terms of academic citations, but saw a decline in the ratio of teaching staff per Finnish and international students.

Elsewhere, Aalto University was ranked 137th, the University of Turku 287th, the University of Jyväskylä 346th, the University of Oulu 374th, the University of Tampere 395th, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT) 491st, the University of Eastern Finland 498th and Åbo Akademi University in the 541-550 group.

QS recently also announced a ranking by subject, in which Finnish universities fared rather well. The University of Helsinki’s best faculty, philosophy, was ranked 21st and Aalto University’s art and design faculty seventh.