This year’s edition is second for QS. In 2023 MU finished 161st out of 688 institutions ranked; this year it finished 143rd out of 685 institutions.
The ranking reflects regional differences. Compared with the global QS WUR ranking, it includes indicators on international student exchange and it focuses in detail on the scientific performance and, in addition to the ratio of foreign students, it also monitors the diversity of the countries the inbound exchange students are coming from. Overall, the ranking is based on twelve indicators from the areas of research and development, education, internationalisation, quality of alumni and sustainability. Institutions from member states of the Council of Europe are included in the evaluation. Compared with the results of the global QS rating, the European environment is characterised by stronger competition in the indicators of International Research Network, International Faculty Ratio and International Students (Diversity).
Masaryk University was most successful with respect to the Sustainability indicator (71st in Europe), which represents an improvement by 22 positions compared with 2023. This result puts the university at the top of Czech rankings of this indicator, in accordance with the release of the most recent edition of the separate QS Sustainability Rankings. The criterion reflects the contribution of the university to sustainable development in research (including applied research), education, community outreach and the operation and management of the university as such.
Likewise, MU manages to achieve similar levels of excellence with respect to indicators of international student mobility and the percentage of students from foreign countries. The indicator Inbound Exchange Students puts MU at 94th place; while the indicators of Outbound Exchange Students and International Student Diversity both mean 106th position. These results reflect the attractiveness of MU for potential foreign students from all parts of the world. Also playing a key role in the improvement of the overall ranking was the quality of alumni measured via the Employer Reputation indicator (107th place and improvement by six places), as well as the Employment Outcomes indicator (in other words, employability), where MU finished 133rd (year-on-year improvement by 71 positions). In line with other improvements, MU has jumped five positions up with respect to the Academic Reputation indicator, finishing 152nd.
“I am excited about our stronger position in these European rankings. I am delighted that our TOP150 is a result of our activities in internationalisation, quality of alumni, sustainability and academic reputation. The latter, in particular, is a challenge and a result of our long-term efforts in international cooperation and the hard work of our staff abroad. There is certainly still some room for improvement. That being said, I believe we have what it takes to make the top 100,” says Masaryk University Rector Martin Bareš.
According to this year’s European ranking, ETH Zurich is the best university, having improved from last year’s second place. Imperial College London finished second (also an improvement of last year’s fourth place), followed by last year’s number one, the University of Oxford.
A total of seventeen Czech universities were ranked, with Charles University being most successful of them at 79th place (also an improvement by seven positions compared with 2023). Masaryk University is second at 143rd, followed by the Czech Technical University in Prague (177th) and Palacký University (214th). Listed further down the ranking are Brno University of Technology, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Mendel University, Technical University of Ostrava, the University of Hradec Králové, the University of South Bohemia, Tomáš Baťa University, the University of Pardubice, the University of Defence, the Technical University of Liberec, the University of West Bohemia and J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem.