THE Young University Ranking: 13 French institutions in the Top 100

According to the THE’s own terms, a “young university” is a university with “50 years or less of existence”. The 2021 ranking assesses 475 institutions in 68 countries (414 in 2020), and is based in the results of the major world ranking of universities of the Times Higher Education, but using weighting to take into account the specificities of “young universities”.

Five French universities in the Top 50

The University PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres) is still mentioned in most of the major international rankings, and it missed the first place by an inch, winning the second place worldwide of young universities.

Not far behind is Sorbonne University (13the place), followed by the University of Paris (14th). The University of Paris Saclay is ranked 22nd, and IMT-Atlantique (École des Mines - Télécom Bretagne – Pays de la Loire) reached the 50th place.

Groups get the best

Noting the growing position of French institutions in international rankings, the French Minister for Higher Education notes that it is “by decompartmentalising universities, ‘grandes écoles’ and research organisations and by allowing them to deploy their strategy within a new organisation” that they have been able to “enhance their scientific potential and be recognised among the best institutions in the world”.

This is confirmed by the fact that the five “young universities” ranked in THE’s Top 50 are the result of recent mergers:

• Paris Sciences & Lettres, which has had the status of an experimental public institution since 2019, brings together eleven of the most prestigious academic and research institutions, with the support of three research organisations;
• Sorbonne University, heir to the historic Sorbonne of 1257, was created in 2018 by bringing together the universities of Paris-Sorbonne and Pierre-et-Marie-Curie and numerous research organisations;
• the University of Paris was created in 2019, and is the result of a collaboration between the founding institutions, the universities of Paris Descartes and Paris Diderot, and the Institut de physique du globe de Paris;
• The University of Paris-Saclay, created in 2019, includes the École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Centrale Supélec, and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) as a research organisation. It should be noted that Paris-Saclay entered the ranking directly in 22nd place;
• Finally, IMT Atlantique was created in 2017 from the merger of the École nationale supérieure des mines de Nantes and Télécom Bretagne;

Additional institutions in the Top 100

In addition to these five institutions (located for most of them in the Île-de-France region) included in the 13 institutions ranked in the Top 100 are major universities implemented in other French regions, such as the University of Montpellier (ranked 65th), the University of Aix-Marseille (70th), the University of Versailles – Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (7nd), the University of Grenoble – Alps (77th), the Agro Institute and its campuses in other regions (80th), the Ecole Centrale of Nantes (86th), the University of Bordeaux (90th) and Télécom SudParis (98th).

The THE mentions that these institutions benefitted from an assessment taking into account a “deep intensity of research” in all their main missions: research, of course, but also teachings, transfer of knowledge to the industrial world, and international prospects.

To know more:

• full THE ranking:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2021/young-university-rankings?&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rankings_newsletter&mc_cid=f09c1c447d&mc_eid=dcb7e770a0#!/page/1/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

• about the method used:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/young-university-rankings-2021-methodology