Finnish universities top in world in GDP-adjusted ranking | Times Higher Education

Follow on Twitter as @elliebothwell

Ellie Bothwell, reporter covering university rankings, fundraising and all areas of internationalisation says, "Nordic country’s higher education system punches above its weight in Universitas 21 ranking."

Photo: Getty

Finland’s universities are the highest performing in the world when countries’ levels of economic development are taken into account, according to a ranking of national higher education systems.

The Nordic country has overtaken Serbia to claim pole position in the Universitas 21 development-adjusted ranking for 2018, up from sixth in last year’s table.

The UK remains in second place in the ranking adjusted for gross domestic product, while Serbia slips to third and South Africa drops five places to eighth. The US remains at 15th.
Finland is also joint sixth, up from ninth, in the overall top 50 ranking, which is based on systems’ absolute performance.

This table is topped by the US, Switzerland and the UK. Sweden and Denmark swap places to claim fourth and fifth positions, respectively, this year, while Singapore slips three places to ninth. 

The Universitas 21 rankings are created by a global consortium of research universities to compare the performance of whole countries, as an alternative to other rankings that focus on individual institutions. 

The rankings are based on 24 separate variables, including the number and impact of research articles produced, university enrolment and graduate unemployment, a qualitative assessment of a country’s policy environment, and spending on tertiary education as a proportion of GDP. 

The development-adjusted ranking is measured by adjusting GDP in purchasing-power parity terms to compensate for different prices across countries.
Read more...
 

Photo: Times Higher Education

What are you reading? by Times Higher Education 
A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers.

Source: Times Higher Education (THE)