Three Swiss universities among top 100 in global ranking

ETH Zurich squeezed into the top ten at 10th place, compared to 9th last year Keystone

The Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) and Lausanne (EPFL) along with the University of Basel continue to figure among the top 100 in the 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. 

The listExternal link, which was released on Tuesday, scores universities on five main criteria: teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. Over 10,500 responses to a survey on reputation of the universities also influenced the ranking.   

While the UK claimed top honours with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge occupying first and second place respectively, Switzerland’s ETHZ garnered the highest ranking in continental Europe at 10^th spot. 

Other Swiss universities that placed well include EPFL (38^th), University of Basel (95^th), University of Bern (105^th) and the University of Geneva (130^th). It was not a great year for the University of Zurich, however, as it plummeted 30 places to rank 136^th. Key reasons behind the fall were a lower bachelor to PhD degree ratio and the number of publications per researcher.