Times Higher Education (THE) has announced the results of its World University Rankings 2021, and this year 21 universities in Germany have made it into the top 200 - making Germany the third-best represented country in the world. 

THE World University Rankings 2021

Every year, the British magazine THE assembles a list of the best universities of the world. Each university’s performance across factors like teaching, research, knowledge transfer and outlook are used to calculate their overall score in the ranking. This year’s list examined more than 1.500 universities across 93 countries or regions worldwide. 

Once again, the top spots in the THE World University Rankings are mostly filled by institutions in the UK and the USA. While the UK’s University of Oxford occupies position number one for the fifth consecutive year, eight of the other top 10 spots are taken by American universities, after the University of California, Berkeley climbed six positions to rank seventh overall. Stanford University and Harvard University come in second and third place, respectively. The only other non-US university in the top 10, the University of Cambridge, takes position six. 

The best universities in Germany 

Once again, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich is the highest-ranked university in Germany, coming in at place 32 overall. Clearly Munich is the place to study in Germany, since the Technical University of Munich is the next-best ranked German university, taking position 41. Heidelberg University was the only other German institution to reach the top 50, climbing another two places from last year to come in 42nd.

In total, 21 German universities made it to the top 200 worldwide, making the federal republic the third-best represented country, after the US and the UK - although its performance has dipped slightly since last year, when 23 German universities were ranked in the top 200. 

Since last year’s ranking, University of Duisberg-Essen and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have both slipped out of the top 200. The other universities that made the top spots remain unchanged since last year:

• 32. LMU Munich
• 41. Technical University of Munich
• 42. Heidelberg University
• =75. Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• =78. University of Tübingen
• =80. Humboldt University of Berlin
• 83. University of Freiburg
• =107. RWTH Aachen University 
• =114. University of Bonn
• =118. Free University of Berlin
• 130. University of Göttingen
• 135. University of Hamburg
• =140. University of Mannheim
• =140. Technical University of Berlin
• =140. Ulm University
• =140. University of Würzburg
• =145. University of Cologne
• =152. TU Dresden
• =158. Bielefeld University
• =195. University of Münster
• =198. University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

For the full ranking, along with details of how the scores are calculated, visit the Times Higher Education website.