What are the world’s top universities in technology, computing, and science?

French Grandes écoles and faculties are not progressing very well in the 2018 ranking of the Times Higher Education.

French universities and elite schools are absent from the world’s top 20 universities made public by Times Higher Education (THE), Tuesday 17 October, in two fields: engineering and technology on the one hand, and information technology on the other.

Results in line with the 2018 general ranking of THE, one of the most watched in European higher education, with the Shanghai ranking and the one established by QS, which proved even less favorable to French institutions than in previous years.

Based on a series of thirteen indicators, including both numerical data and reputation surveys in five categories (teaching, research, the influence of research, internationalization, innovation), these sector rankings, which only covered 100 institutions last year, were extended to 500 in engineering and technology and 300 in computer science.

A simple change that allows 23 French establishments to be included in engineering and technology, and 8 in computer science. Compared to last year’s two top 100s, the Ecole Polytechnique dominates each time, followed by the Paris Sciences et Lettres grouping, which was not ranked in the previous year.

THE 2018 engineering and technology classification

In the “engineering and technology” category, the positioning of the establishments differs little.

Ten of the top 20 remain American, Stanford, this time ahead of the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) at the top, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked fourth. For its part, the United Kingdom, which places three institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, has to contend with more competitors: the Swiss ETH Zurich and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the German TU Munich, but also the Delft University of Technology of the Netherlands, Nanyang University and Singapore University, the University of Beijing and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, which remains in this Top 20.

THE 2018 Rankings in Computer Science

According to Times Higher Education, half of the world’s top 20 “computer sciences” (computer science) universities are American, with Stanford and MIT being the most prominent universities in the world.

The United Kingdom, for its part, has five, including Oxford and Cambridge. Switzerland (ETH Zurich and EPFL) and Germany (TU Munich) are still represented but are losing places, as is the University of Singapore. Tsinghua University in China is moving up to 20th place by winning a place.