The ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities), also called the Shanghai Ranking, has been published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University regularly since 2003 and is considered one of the three most important university rankings in the world. It focuses on universities’ performance in science and research. Masaryk University first appeared in the ARWU in 2017. According to the latest results, it now ranks 401st – 500th in the world. The latest Academic Ranking of World Universities evaluates over 2,500 institutions and publicly ranks the top one thousand.
“We are mindful of the legacy of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš G. Masaryk, who once said that the world has always stood on work, not mood – and the world is sustained only by work, small but steady. That is why this result has brought a big smile to my face. It marks really significant progress that no other university in the Czech Republic has achieved this year. I would like to thank all people at Masaryk University for their efforts. It shows that common effort, open discussion and emphasis on quality bring international recognition and visibility,” said Martin Bareš, Rector of Masaryk University.
ARWU ranks world universities according to six indicators, including the number of papers published in Nature and Science and the citation rate of their publications. It also tracks the number of scientists and scholars in the Highly Cited Researchers database and the number of Nobel Prize winners associated with a given institution, as well as the per capita academic performance of universities.
Masaryk University’s success is a product of good performance in four indicators: The number of papers published in Nature and Science, where it scored the same as last year (7.3 points), in the number of papers indexed by Web of Science, where it increased its score to 31.5 points (from 30.5 last year), and in its per capita academic performance, where it improved its score to 22.1 points (compared to 19.9 last year). Finally, for the first time in history, MU was able to achieve a better ranking thanks to having representatives on the list of highly cited researchers (6.8 points).
“We continuously strive for Masaryk University to have a strong position in research, experimental development and innovation. There is a lot of hard and complex work behind this, from building quality facilities, to standardising requirements for high-quality work, and so on and so forth. It is a great honour to be ranked among the 500 best universities in the world. This gives our work meaning and motivates us to achieve more, as we want to contribute to solving global and local societal challenges through research and its application in health, safety and quality of life,” said Šárka Pospíšilová, Vice-Rector for Research and Doctoral Studies at Masaryk University, commenting on Masaryk University’s best-ever ranking.
In addition to the main AWRU ranking, Masaryk University has also scored well in the individual rankings of academic subjects. Overall, it made the ranking in 11 out of 54 disciplines. It achieved the best results in Environmental Science & Engineering (101st-150th position), Agricultural Sciences (201st-300th), Ecology (201st-300th), Geography (201st-300th place) and Veterinary Sciences (201st-300th).
The Faculty of Education was happy with its position in the Education ranking, where MU – as the only Czech university – has been ranked 301st-400th for the second consecutive year.