Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020: 34 French institutions in the Top 100

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The highly expected academic ranking of the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai has just been released. The new ranking confirms the excellence of higher education in France, with the presence at highest levels of 34 French institutions. This success was particularly praised this year by the ministry in charge of higher education, who wanted to congratulate all the institutions in the ranking and their teams.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), aka “Shanghai ranking” is one of the most recognized international rankings. Before the release of the general ranking in August, the subject ranking measures, by academic speciality, the performances of higher education institutions worldwide.

Mathematics steal the spotlights

The thematic ranking assesses institutions in five major fields (natural sciences, engineering sciences, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences) grouping 54 different disciplines. Throughout all disciplines, the best French institution is the University of Paris-Saclay, winning a much sought-after first place in mathematics, before Princeton.

As the ministry of higher education points out, the University of Paris-Saclay is thus “ranked among the 100 best universities worldwide in 25 disciplines”, while the “Sorbonne University is ranked 21 times, the University of Grenoble Alpes 17 times, Paris Sciences and Letters 13 times, and the University of Paris 9 times”.

Other winning disciplines

In the Top 50 of the best universities worldwide are 18 French institutions, while 34 are in the Top 100. Indeed, mathematics are not the only field where France excels, since other disciplines, such as environment disciplines, are well ranked. This is the case of ecology, for which the university of Montpellier is ranked 2nd after Oxford. According to the ministry, the ranking shows the “continued commitment of our universities and teachers-researchers about environment and climate issues”.

Other successes in these fields underline this commitment: for example, in oceanography, where the Sorbonne University group reached the 3rd rank, and in physics, where Paris-Saclay and Paris Sciences and Letters reached the 9th and 10th rank, respectively.

The success of the institutions concentration policy

According to the ministry, commenting overall results, the new concentration policy “monitoring the creation of new experimental institutions, shows its relevance by finally stressing the scientific potential of our universities on the international front scene, side by side with the very best”.