As always, the top spots in this year’s THE World University Rankings are mostly filled by institutions from the USA and UK. But a handful of German universities managed to reach the higher rungs, and one in particular has made an extraordinary leap. 

THE World University Rankings 2020

Every year, the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE) assembles a list of the best universities in the world, ranking them according to their performance across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. In total, almost 1.400 universities across 92 countries were examined for the ranking.

For the fourth year in a row, the UK’s University of Oxford has landed the number one spot, followed closely by the California Institute for Technology, the University of Cambridge, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

LMU Munich ranked best in Germany

The highest-ranked university in Germany is the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, coming in at place 32. Munich is clearly the place to be for higher education in Germany, as the next-highest-performing institution in the federal republic - the Technical University of Munich, ranked 43rd - also calls the Bavarian city home.

Coming in just behind TUM, the University of Heidelberg also made it into the top 50 in the world, climbing three places since last year to rank 44th overall. The absolute star of this year’s ranking, however, has to be the University of Bielefeld, which has achieved a dizzying rise: back in 2018, it was languishing at rank 250. This year, it has climbed all the way up to 166th.

German universities in the global top 200

In total, 23 higher education institutions in Germany were ranked in the top 200, making the federal republic the third-best represented country in the top 200, after the USA and the UK. Above all, the authors of the ranking praised universities in Germany for their top-quality research and good connections with industry. 

The German universities that made it into the top 200 were as follows:

• 32. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
• 43. TU Munich
• 44. University of Heidelberg
• 74. Humboldt University of Berlin
• 80. Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• 86. University of Freiburg
• 91. University of Tübingen
• 99. RWTH Aachen University
• 105. University of Bonn
• 117. Free University of Berlin
• 125. University of Göttingen
• 141. Ulm University
• = 149. University of Hamburg
• = 149. Technical University of Berlin
• = 157. University of Cologne
• = 157. University of Mannheim
• = 157. TU Dresden
• 163. University of Würzburg
• 166. Bielefeld University
• 175. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
• 183. University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 189. University of Münster
• 194. University of Duisburg-Essen

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