FAU’s outstanding performance confirmed in THE World Ranking

In the top third in Germany

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking 2015–2016, published on 1 October, places FAU at number 123 in its list of 800 research-intensive world universities. Compared to the 2014 ranking, the University has moved up the list by over 170 places. In the comparison of 37 German universities FAU comes in at number 12, ten places higher than last year. The University is ranked especially highly for the indicator ‘industry income’ scaled against the number of academic staff it employs – among the top five percent at place 30.

‘The two categories that we have performed best in in the THE Ranking, ‘industry income’ and ‘citations’, highlight our innovative capabilities,’ says FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger. Seven FAU researchers are included in Thomson Reuters’ 2015 Highly Cited Researchers list, while the University is ranked highly in the current QS World University Ranking for the number of citations.

‘At FAU, this means targeting socially relevant questions that require research and not simply focusing on development that is important for industry,’ he explains. This is reflected in the range of research areas covered at the University, such as materials research, medical engineering, energy research within the context of climate change, optical research dealing with challenges in healthcare, or topics in the humanities and social sciences such as human rights or societies in the Middle East and Asia. ‘The academic approach to challenges in our modern world – the research perspective – is something we also teach our young researchers. Transferring knowledge at the research level is incredibly important to us – and this is appreciated by the future employers of our graduates. We are therefore delighted that the THE Ranking also rates us highly in teaching,’ Prof. Hornegger explains.

The THE World University Ranking by the London-based Times Higher Education magazine has been published once a year since 2004. This list, created in collaboration with publishing company Elsevier, is one of the most influential international university rankings alongside the QS World University Ranking and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). It evaluates the top 800 universities in the world on the basis of 13 indicators reflecting their strength in teaching, research and knowledge transfer, as well as their international outlook. The quality of teaching, the number of citations in journals, and research each make up 30 percent of the overall score, while the remaining 10 percent is based on industry income scaled against the number of academic staff and international outlook. The data used for the ranking comes from three different sources, a bibliometric database, a survey of researchers and data provided by the universities themselves.

Further information:

Jens Kämmler
Office of Strategic Information and Performance Statistics
+49 9131 8523171
jens.kaemmler@fau.de