Improved position in this year’s global THE ranking

Like last year, the best Swedish university is Karolinska Institutet (KI). The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), which was previously lower down the list, now ranks as the second-best Swedish university in 97th place, followed by Lund University (106) and Uppsala University (140).

The changes in the result between 2022 and 2023 can largely be explained by a new ranking methodology.

“It is mainly due to the fact that THE has revised its indicators, expanding from the previous 13 to 18 indicators now. It also means that the weighting between the previous indicators has been amended,” explains Emma Östlund, Controller at the Planning Division at Uppsala University.

Several research quality indicators

The largest change is that the main measure, citations, has now become research quality and is broken up into several underlying indicators; something which has benefited Uppsala University. THE has also revised some of the underlying calculations of the measures. Nowadays, for example, the size of a country is taken into account when assessing international outlook and purchasing power when assessing income.

Several Swedish universities have improved their positions, but what stands out is the large rise achieved by KTH and Chalmers.

“One assumption could be that the changes benefited technological universities, but it could simply also be that both performed well,” says Östlund.

Like last year, the University of Oxford in the UK takes the top spot on the list. In second and third place are Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

Annica Hulth