University of Helsinki improves its standing in global ranking of academic institution

Grading of scholars had significant impact on results

The University of Helsinki significantly improved its standing on the global and European ranking of academic institutions published by The Times Higher Education Supplement.
Of the 200 top universities worldwide, Finland's leading university came in at 62nd, up from 129th last year. Among the top European institutions of higher education, the University of Helsinki improved its ranking from 62nd to 18th.
The THES published its World University Rankings for the second year running.

Another Finnish institute, the Helsinki University of Technology, came in 194th. Last year it was ranked at No.176.
The world's top five universities are Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Oxford, and Stanford.
The THES ranking is based on six criteria. The largest weight is on the so-called peer-review data, which accounts for 40 percent of the available score in the ranking.
The sample used to compile the peer-review section consisted of 2,375 research-active academics.

Opinions of major international employers of academics were also taken into account when deciding on the order of superiority of the seats of learning. This group included banks, airlines, and industrial establishments.

Other ranking criteria included the staff-to-student ratio, and the number of citations for academic papers generated by staff members. This gives an indication of the universities' research prowess.

The University of Helsinki was the highest-ranking institution in the Nordic Countries on the THES list. This compares with another listing, produced in Shanghai, in which a number of Swedish universities outperform their Finnish counterparts.

The newspaper argues that the criteria used in its evaluation centre on features that should be common to "global institutions".