Belgian universities among the best in the world
The University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Ghent University (UGent), the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) are all among the best 200 universities in the world. This has been confirmed in the annual ranking, determined by the magazine ‘Times Higher Education’. Their assessment took various factors into consideration, namely education, research, scientific citations and international outlook.
Of all the Belgian universities, KU Leuven ended the highest (47), followed by UGent (107) and UCL (129). ULB is a newcomer to the list, but still achieved 175th place, and was therefore well within the top 200. Top of the list is Oxford University (1), followed by its rival Cambridge (2) and California Institute of Technology together with Stanford University (in joint 3rd position).
Earlier this year there was also another publication ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’, created by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, a Chinese organisation working independently to assess the quality of research universities. In this ranking, UGent was awarded 69th position, somewhat higher than KU Leuven who came 90th. UGent's veterinary department was even named the best in the world. The ranking created by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy is based on factors such as the number of academic prizes for professors, the number of Nobel prizes won by alumni, the number of scientific papers published and the number of papers included in the Science Citation Index.