KTH drops in THE ranking
In Time Higher Education´s (THE) ranking of the best universities 2020, KTH comes in at place 201 – 250. This means a decline in position from last year when the ranking was 187.
Primarily, there are three indicators in which KTH has lost ground: Doctorate to bachelor award, Citation impact and Publications per staff. The decline was particularly large in Citation impact where KTH’s ranking dropped from 404 to 471.
“Clearly, this is not a good result and cannot last if KTH is to eventually rank among the world’s top universities. No longer being ranked among the top 200 is a bit like being relegated from the Premier League,” says KTH’s ranking expert Per-Anders Östling.
Ranking affects recruitment of students and researchers, employment opportunities for alumni, opportunities to collaborate with the world’s leading universities and companies and the opportunity to compete for external funding, Östling says.
“In the long run, there is a risk that KTH is weakened due to it´s no longer being perceived as a world leading university and that international students, researchers and potential partners rather would choose other, more prominent universities, and that KTH will find it more difficult to assert itself in competition for external funding,” says Per-Anders Östling .
What must KTH do climb the ranking list again?
“KTH’s research must do much better when it comes to citations in order to be able to assert itself in this kind of rankings,” says Per-Anders Östling.
Words: Håkan Soold