Shanghai Ranking 2020: France Climbs to 3rd Place Worldwide

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The traditional annual Shanghai Ranking has just been published. This year, for the first time, France's higher education and research has been rewarded with 30 establishments making the list: one in the top twenty, three in the top 50, and five in the top 100.

“The quality of our higher education and research has finally been recognized internationally at its true level.” So spoke the President of the Republic in response to the results of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, otherwise known as the Shanghai Ranking. France took third place worldwide in the ranking's Top 20, after the United States and Great Britain.

New institutional models

The French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation emphasized that the 2020 ranking marks “excellent progress, partly due to the fact that, for the first time, the ranking has taken into account the new university models created between 2019 and 2020.” The ministry also stated that the success can be particularly attributed to the decompartmentalization of universities, “grandes écoles” and research establishments, which has allowed them to “roll out their strategies” and “highlight their scientific potential,” leading to “recognition as some of the finest institutions in the world.”

17 French institutions in the Top 500

Paris-Saclay University is the top French university in the ranking. It is ranked third in Europe (after Cambridge and Oxford) and 14th worldwide.

Four other universities have also been honored in the Top 100: PSL University (36th place), Sorbonne University (39th), University of Paris (65th) and Grenoble Alpes University (99th).

12 other French institutions made the Top 500: Aix Marseille University, University of Strasbourg, University of Montpellier, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse 3), University of Bordeaux, University of Lorraine, Ecole Normale Superieure - Lyon, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, University of Côte d'Azur, University of Toulouse 1 and University of Lille.

Several new institutions entered the ranking and should also be mentioned: EHESS, Gustave Eiffel University, Paris 12 Val de Marne University, University of Tours and University of Côte d'Azur (which went straight to the Top 300).

The academic subject ranking also favors France

The Ministry rightly emphasizes that most of these universities had already been honored with inclusion in Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects last June. In fact, a total of 86 French institutions received academic subject recognition, including 37 institutions that were among the Top 100 worldwide in at least one subject, “putting France in first place for mathematics, second for ecology and third for oceanography.” One of the institutions was Paris-Saclay University, which was ranked first worldwide in mathematics.

A methodology based on research performance

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (originally created by Shanghai Jiao Tong University) ranks universities by several indicators of “academic or research performance,” including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals and the publication of papers in specialized magazines.

Currently, over 1,800 universities are ranked. The 1,000 best are included in the published ranking.