Not a single Polish university has qualified to the Top 200 World Universities ranking, conducted by the Times Higher Education magazine.

According to the rating, the world’s top universities are: Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Yale University, University College London, Imperial College London and University of Oxford. This year there are 39 European, 36 American and 16 Asian universities in the Top 100 World Universities. In comparison with the last year, the number of US universities in the Top 100 has gone down by six and the number of European universities has increased by three.

In the Top 50 World Universities there are only six universities from the European Union (except UK), mainly engineering and IT universities from Switzerland and France such as ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland).

The rating was based on peer and employer review scores, faculty per students and citations per staff scores and international staff and students scores.

University rankings, which are commonplace in the US and Great Britain as well as in Scandinavian countries, have recently gained popularity in Poland and other new EU member states. Therefore, the European Commission decided to create a multi-dimensional university ranking system. The pilot project is expected in the first half of 2011.

In Poland, popular university rankings are published annually by the weekly Wprost magazine and the daily Rzeczpospolita. For years the two top positions have been held by Jagiellonian University in Krakow (the oldest university in Poland) and University of Warsaw (the biggest university in Poland). (mg/mmj)

Full ranking: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.html