Times Higher Education: UP Improved its Ranking by 62 Places in Medical and Health Education

The London-based Times Higher Education (THE) compares 28 thousand higher education institutions world-wide in different categories. There are 5 larger categories with 13 markers in each of them. Every Hungarian university’s in medical and health sciences fields improved their ranking substantially, by more than 50 places in higher education’s prestigious ranking. The placement of the Semmelweis University improved by 87 places, the University of Debrecen by 67 places, the University of Pécs by 62 places and the University of Szeged by 57 places on the Times Higher Education’s 2021 list.

According to Dániel Kehl, associate professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics, and ranking expert of the Rector’s Cabinet, University of Pécs this improvement cannot only be the consequence of the recent improvement in the performance of these institutions, but it is also due to the THE’s methodology getting refined as well. “The tendency has been present for years now for the THE’s methodology to consider the unique traits of the world’s higher education institutions more and more in order to make its ranking list truly objective.” – said Dániel Kehl. Accordingly, what matters for this result is the number of doctoral titles produced (which means that doctoral titles given in the fields of medicine and law count as well) thus improving the ratings of all Hungarian institutions with training programmes in the field of medicine or law.

“It is important to note the THE’s system thinks in terms of institutions not faculties.

Ranking lists of specific scientific disciplines are mainly concerned with the number of publications and citations,

which means that in a ranking list encompassing medicine and health sciences, every publication published in on those fields’ scientific journals count towards the placement of the institute. Concerning the current result, we can say that the UP Medical School played the largest part in achieving it, however, it might not have been possible without the contribution of the publications in the fields of healthcare and medicine by the researchers at the Faculty of Pharmacy, the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Faculty of Sciences.” The expert also added that since the ranking methodology is based on the number of publications in the scientific journals of the discipline, in the case of an interdisciplinary study published in a different institution’s medical or research-focused scientific journal of healthcare or medicine would count towards the placement as well.

According to Dániel Kehl, we can further improve the placement of the University of Pécs with often-cited studies published in prestigious scientific journals.

From a methodological point of view however, - added the expert - there are two markers which raises some questions. There is a questionnaire aimed at measuring the fame of an institution by asking the person to name the top ten institutes worldwide from the point-of-view of research and education. In my opinion, this questionnaire is biased towards a select few renowned institutions and withholds points from other lesser known ones. If some of the people filling out these questionnaires would place UP on the list, that would improve its placement tremendously.

The coronavirus does not affect the THE’s 2021 ranking list at all, since it analyses economic and population data from 2018 and even older publication data. The pandemic will, however, most certainly affect the THE’s future lists. According to Dániel Kehl:

“The virus will indicate the introduction of new markers in rankings focusing on the quality of education and research at HEIs.

Just to give you an example: as online education becomes more wide-spread due to the pandemic, professor to student ratio will become less relevant as a marker.”

THE World University Ranking 2021 by subject - clinical and health »