ARWU: ELTE leads in five fields of expertise in Hungary

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published its 2024 academic subject rankings on November 11, evaluating the programs of 5,000 universities from 96 countries and regions across five major scientific fields (natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences, and social sciences), including 55 narrower disciplines. Ultimately, the programs of 1,900 universities made it onto the list.

Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) was ranked in seven disciplines, four of which (mathematics, physics, psychology, and education science) achieved absolute first place, while in one discipline (environmental science), it shared the first place with the University of Debrecen among domestic higher education institutions. The ranked disciplines, as well as ELTE’s international and national rankings, are summarized in the table below.

Compared to last year, ELTE improved its ranking by one category in mathematics and environmental science. Based on the Clarivate database, the university also made its debut on the list this year with research in the veterinary science field.

The global edition of the ranking was first published in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and since 2009, the survey has been conducted by an independent organization, ShanghaiRanking. Subject-specific rankings have been published since 2017, based on factors such as the number of high-quality (Q1) scientific publications, citations, the proportion of publications co-authored with foreign collaborators, the number of publications in leading journals or presented at prominent conferences, and the number of researchers recognized with major awards. Additionally, in 2024, a new category for world-class faculties was introduced, where institutions’ performance is measured based on four new indicators: scientific award winners, highly cited researchers, journal editors-in-chief, and leaders of scientific organizations. You can read more about the methodology of the survey on this page in English.

This year, the top positions of the ranking are again dominated by Anglo-Saxon universities, with American institutions taking first place in 29 of the 55 examined disciplines. Harvard University holds 14 first-place positions, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has 4, Tsinghua University in Beijing has 3, while Princeton, the University of Chicago, and Oxford each have 2.

The results of the 2024 subject rankings, broken down by scientific fields, disciplines, and countries, can be browsed on the ARWU website. The achievements of ELTE in domestic and international rankings are summarized in this article.