Copenhagen moves up on Shanghai ranking

The prestigious Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), based out of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, places the University of Copenhagen at number 42, a two-position increase from the previous year’s report.

A majority of the universities ranked above the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) are American, with the Ivy League Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT topping the list. Harvard has been ranked number one since 2003, when the ARWU began. Meanwhile, UCPH has been moving up steadily, rising from position 66 to 42 in the last ten years.

The ARWU uses six indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of cited researchers, and the amount of published articles, all according to the size of the institution. The University of Copenhagen boasts its top performance within the fields of natural, life, and agricultural sciences and mathematics.

Ninth in Europe, best in Scandinavia

Three other Danish universities made the list, with Aarhus University ranked number 81, and Danish Technological University (DTU) and the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) both placed between 150 and 300.

Although the university’s distinction as ninth in Europe remains the same as last year, the rankings have shifted to place UCPH as best in Scandinavia, tailed by with Sweden’s Karolinska Institute at position 44. The top university in Europe is the University of Cambridge at position 5, cosying up to the American Ivy League schools.

More than 1000 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published on the web. Check out this year’s ARWU report here.

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