Israeli universities fall in world ranking

Not a single Israeli academic institution makes it into top 100 in QS ranking. Hebrew University plunges to 120th place, Tel Aviv University ranks 173rd, while Technion isn't even among top 200

Reuters | Published: 09.06.11, 09:07

Not a single Israeli university has made it into the top 100 academic institutions list in the QS World University Rankings 2011/12. Jerusalem's Hebrew University fell 11 spots to the 120th place, compared to last year's listing.

Tel Aviv University plunged 45 spots to the 173rd place. The biggest fall was recorded by Haifa's Technion, which was ranked 220th – down 66 places. The rest of the Israeli universities were not included on the list.

The first place was given to the University of Cambridge, followed by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Yale University and the University of Oxford.

Despite the drop, Tel Aviv University officials expressed their satisfaction over the ranking. According to the officials, the index examining the number of citation of academic works in relation to the members of faculty ranked the university in the 14th place, after MIT and ahead of a series of leading academic institutions worldwide.

האוניברסיטה העברית. ירדה ב-11 מקומות (צילום: רון פלד)

Hebrew University. Down 11 places (Photo: Ron Peled)

Hebrew University appeared to be happy with its ranking as well. "Hebrew University is proud to remain Israel's leading research institute, as determined by the 2011 QS ranking," the institution said in a statement.

"This year too, the university is included among the top 100 (in the 83rd place) in the most important index, which examines the number of citations per faculty, pointing to the academic recognition it receives."

The statement added that "other indices in the QS ranking which refer, for example, to the number of foreign students, do not point to academic excellence and are therefore not as significant.

"Hebrew University maintains its level of excellence, as shown in the Shanghai ranking, which is considered the most objective, in which the university climbed 15 spots this year compared to last year, reaching the 57th place, which is the highest since the ranking was first published in 2003."

Only two weeks ago, the Israeli academia was lauded after Hebrew University ranked 57th in the list of the world's top 100 universities conducted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion were ranked in the list of the top 102-150 universities.