The University of Debrecen is among the top 800 institutions of higher education in the latest rankings of Times Higher Education. More than 1,900 higher education institutions from 28,000 universities around the world were ranked in THE World University Rankings 2024, published on Wednesday. The ranking is based on their teaching and research activities, international reputation, industrial income and patents.

The University of Debrecen is now ranked in the 601-800 tier, as the best Hungarian research university, in the latest global ranking by the renowned British ranking compiler Times Higher Education. The institution improved 400 places from its 1001-1200 position last year, with the best performance measured in the education category, and also scored well in the area of international outlook. With this result, the University of Debrecen is ranked in the top 3 percent of the world’s higher education institutions.

This significant step forward was also praised by Zoltán Szilvássy, Rector of the University of Debrecen, who underlined that the result is the fruit of the persistent work of the past years.

“Five years ago, the university’s management decided to launch a targeted programme to ensure that the institution’s excellence is also reflected in its rankings. This complex programme of action focuses on education, the promotion of research activities, the international visibility of the work produced by the university’s researchers, and the development of the indexing of journals published by the institution, in order to ensure that more journals are included in international databases,” said Rector Szilvássy. He added that the newly published ranking provides excellent feedback on the outstanding educational, research and innovation activities of the University of Debrecen, among which there are still areas where further improvements are needed.

Phil Baty, THE’s Head of Global Affairs, also highlighted the performance of Hungarian higher education institutions and congratulated the University of Debrecen for moving up two tiers to the top 800 in the ranking this year.

The methodology of this year’s, 20th edition of the World University Rankings has been significantly updated to better reflect the performance of research-intensive universities. The number of performance indicators calibrated in detail has been increased from thirteen to eighteen. The composition and weighing of the research indicators have also been changed: research activity is now assessed in terms of research environment and research quality, and patents have been added to the industrial indicators, while international outlook is now also based on study abroad activities. The performance indicators also cover five areas: education at 29.5% (educational environment), research environment at 29% (productivity, income and reputation), research quality at 30% (citation impact, research productivity, research excellence and research influence), international outlook at 7.5% (staff, students and co-authorship), and industry 4% (income and patents).

The ranking is topped by the University of Oxford in the UK, Stanford University in the United States, and the University of Debrecen’s strategic partner, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also in the USA.

From among Hungarian universities, in addition to the University of Debrecen, the global ranking includes Semmelweis University, Eötvös Loránd University, Óbuda University, the University of Pécs, and the University of Szeged, and others.

The full ranking is available on the website of THE, where you can also find the list of Hungarian institutions.