International rankings: 77 French institutions in the CWUR ranking

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The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has just released its annual world ranking of higher education institutions, in which France reached a nice position. With 77 institutions ranked, France is the 5th best country, after the United States, China, Japan and the United Kingdom. French institutions in the Top 50 include the University of Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) at the 19th rank.

The CWUR self-defines as a “leading consulting organization providing policy advice, strategic insights, and consulting services to governments and universities to improve educational and research outcomes”, and publishes since 2012 a ranking that broadened over the years. The CWUR lists today the 2,000 best universities out of 20,000 worldwide, making it according to the CWUR “the largest academic ranking of global universities”.

Five French institutions in the Top 50

In the 2022-2023 edition, 19,788 institutions were analysed, and leaders are included in the Global 2,000. This list includes 77 French institutions.

And more specifically, in the Top 50 is PSL, that entered the ranking in 2020. The university went up two ranks to reach the 19th place. Four additional institutions located in the Paris region are also present in the Top 50:

Université Paris-Saclay (32th rank);
Sorbonne Université (38th);
Université Paris Cité (42th);
Institut polytechnique de Paris (43th).

Eleven institutions in the Top 200

In addition to the Top 200, a total of 11 French institutions are worth noting, since 6 additional schools and universities located all over France can be found in the ranking:

INSEAD (119th)
Université de Strasbourg (141th)
Université Grenoble-Alpes (147th)
Aix-Marseille Université (158th)
Université de Montpellier (168th)
Institut national du service public, general school of administration (191th).

In addition, it is worth noting that among the 13 French institutions that improved their results between 2021 and 2022, Université de Poitiers (700th, +217), Université Paris-Est Créteil (401th, +195), Université Gustave Eiffel (660th, +142) and Université Rennes 1 (427th, +106) scored major progress. To be noted that the École nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse entered the ranking for the first time in 2022, at the 1,982th rank.

Quantitative approach

The CWUR ranking has always focused on institutions implemented in the United States, and is based on seven “objective indicators” grouped in four fields for a “quantitative approach”:

education, based on the academic success of a university’s alumni;
employability, based on the professional success of a university’s alumni;
faculty, measured by the number of faculty members who have won prestigious academic distinctions;
research performance, with overall criteria such as research output, quality of publications, the number of citations or the measure of influence.