THE 2022 ranking of “young universities”: France’s scientific excellence rewarded

“The excellence of our universities shines internationally, thanks to our massive investment policy.” This is what French Minister for Higher Education said, stressing that she was delighted “to see our experimental public institutions appear at the top of the list of the best young universities in THE”. The Times Higher Education has in fact been producing a new ranking for the past few years, based on an abstract of its annual ranking, which reflects the quality of recently created higher education institutions.

12 French institutions in the Top 100

With five institutions ranked in the Top 20 and a total of 12 in the Top 100, France thus ranks 6th in the world, based on the number of institutions listed in the ranking. 

In the wake of PSL, the Paris Polytechnic Institute, Sorbonne University, the University of Paris and Paris-Saclay, seven additional institutions located all over France are also included in THE’s ranking:

• IMT Atlantique (44th position),
• University of Montpellier (61st),
• Aix-Marseille University (62nd),
• University of Bordeaux (65th),
• Grenoble Alpes University and Institut Agro, a multi-campus school (tied at 91st position),
• Ecole Centrale de Nantes (99th).

The reasons for success

To explain the success of France’s “young universities”, the Ministry of Higher Education highlights three factors:

• the policy of grouping institutions, thanks to the 2018 law on the experimentation of new forms of bringing together, grouping or merging higher education and research institutions, which has allowed the emergence of new models of French universities;
• the “Plan de Relance” investment programme for the future, which highlights the “initiatives of excellence” in higher education and research promoted by the French government;
• the new research programming law (2021), which has brought new assets to universities (increase in research budgets and credits, creation of junior professorships, increase of the value of the doctorate) and which makes it possible to “continue and intensify scientific production and improve attractiveness to international researchers”.

An adapted methodology

For THE best young universities ranking, over 400 institutions in 68 countries were assessed. Although it only concerns higher education institutions founded since 1972, the same methodology as that of the general ranking (THE World University) was adopted.

This general ranking assesses universities in their main missions: teaching (quality of training courses), research (quantity and reputation), knowledge transfer (industrial revenue) and international openness (mobility of students, staff, research). In the young universities ranking, some weightings are nevertheless applied to better reflect the profile of these institutions with the introduction of other performance indicators and in particular the collection of opinions from students, academics and companies.