Thirteen, 34, 43, 60. It is not the numbers of the quarter but the places of the first four French universities in the annual classification of Shanghai. This was published this Friday. And Paris-Saclay remains the best French university, in 13th place in the world, according to this ranking, made since 2003 by the independent firm Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, and very taken up despite certain criticisms on its methodology.
The Top 10 remains exclusively occupied by Anglo-Saxon establishments, the American Harvard ranking in mind followed by Stanford and put it. In the United Kingdom, Cambridge and Oxford remain respectively fourth and sixth.
The four French universities of the Top 100, in addition to Paris-Saclay, are Paris Sciences Lettres (PSL, 34th), Sorbonne University (43rd), and Paris Cité University (60th). Apart from the last one, which is maintained in its position, all fell with a few places.
27 French universities in the top 1,000
The wider ranking of the 1,000 best universities, however, sees a small progression for France, since two new establishments (Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines universities and Picardie-Jules-Verne Amiens) are entering the total to 27.
This new ranking testifies to an “increased competition” for French universities, admitted in a press release the Ministries of Education and Higher Education. “These results converge to underline the challenges faced by higher education and French research in a context of intensified global scientific competition,” they said.
The Shanghai ranking is based on six criteria
However, the ministries welcome a classification which “testifies both to the quality of French scientific work and the international recognition of our researchers”.
The Shanghai ranking takes into account six criteria, including the number of Nobel and Fields medals – considered as the Nobel Mathematics – among graduates and teachers, the number of researchers most cited in their discipline or the number of publications in Science and Nature journals. These criteria, essentially based on research and not on training, feed some of the criticisms on this list.