Eight EU countries not represented in the WorldҀs Top-500 Universities

An assessment carried out by AllAboutUni.com reveals that 8 of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU) are not represented in the WorldҀs Top-50 universities. AllAboutUni.com is an independent, global and inter-active website where visitors can obtain information about universities (global rankings, student reviews, university news and campus pictures). It publishes regular reports on universities around the world.

The analysis is based on a ranking of the WorldҀs Top-500 Universities produced by the Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (click here). Several indicators of academic or research performance are used to establish the ranking, these include staff winning Nobel Prizes, highly cited researchers and articles indexed in major citation indices. The rankings have been published since 2003, with the 2008 rankings published on 15 August 2008.

The eight EU countries that are not represented in the World's Top-500 universities in 2008 are: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania and Slovakia. In other words, small countries in Western Europe (Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta) and countries in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia). All of the other EU countries are represented in the list, with the top five being: Germany (44 universities), United Kingdom (42), France (23), Italy (22) and the Netherlands (12).

Overall, the Europe region is well represented in the World's Top-500 universities, with roughly 40% (n=210) of universities based in this region compared to 40% (n=190) for the Americas and 20% (n=100) for Asia/Pacific ( click here). However, when one looks at the Top-100 Universities, there is a predominance of US universities (58 universities versus 23 for Europe), and the United Kingdom performs better than other European countries (click here). In the Top-10 Universities, US and private universities are dominant (click here).

One hypothesis is that the larger EU countries will dominate the number of universities in the list of the World's Top-500 Universities. This is clearly the case with Germany, United Kingdom, France and Italy providing the most (62%) of the universities from Europe. However, if one adjusts for population size (i.e. one calculates the number of universities in the Top-500 per 1 million inhabitants in the country), the following ranking is obtained: Sweden (1.2 universities in the World's Top-500 Universities per 1 million inhabitants), Finland (1.2), Austria (0.9), Denmark (0.8) and the Netherlands (0.7). This means the EU countries with the most universities per 1 million inhabitants are located in smaller countries in Western Europe, especially countries in Scandinavia.

The AllAboutUni.com website provides a portal where students can find independent information about universities from around the world. рThe website allows students to compare colleges and universities online based on independent information: the Shanghai rankings, student reviews and campus pictures. Combining this with the information provided by university websites, we hope students will be able to find the college or university of their dreamsҀ, says John Paget, Founder of the AllAboutUni.com website. John studied Economics at the London School of Economics and then completed graduate studies in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The AllAboutUni.com website was launched in November 2007.