Prague, Sept 23 (CTK) – Twelve Czech universities are included in the list of the best 980 universities in the world according to the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings released on Thursday, but none of them is among the top 400, for the first time since 2011, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes Friday.
The best one, Charles University, used to place 351st to 400th in the THE rankings, but it decreased to the 401st to 500th position last year and remained in this group this year.
In the 601st to 800th position, five Czech universities are included: Brno University of Technology, Masaryk University in Brno, Palacky University in Olomouc, and University of Chemistry and Technology (VSCHT) and Czech Technical University (CVUT), both in Prague.
“It is a success for us. We are a dwarf among the Czech giants,” VSCHT Rector Karel Melzoch told LN.
The VSCHT has only four faculties and it focuses on research.
Last year, the Technical University of Ostrava (VSB) surprisingly was 301st to 350th, but now it sank to 801+. The same position was achieved by five other Czech universities in the latest rankings: Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CULS), University of Pardubice, Technical University of Liberec, Tomas Bata University in Zlin and University of West Bohemia.
Changes in the assessment methods seem to be behind the marked worsening of the VSB, LN writes.
Palacky University Rector Jaroslav Miller challenged the assessment methods, referring to the relatively big differences in the 2015 and 2016 results.
A dozen of universities among the thousand best is not bad, the paper writes, adding that the much biggest Poland has nine universities in the list, Hungary has seven, Austria six, Slovakia two and Bulgaria one.
On the other hand, Germany has 41 universities in the rankings, with nine universities in the top 100.
The rankings show that Asian universities have been developing: it includes 69 universities from Japan, 52 from China and 31 from India, LN writes.
But the best universities are traditionally from the United States and Britain. The rankings are led by Oxford, followed by Caltech, Stanford, Cambridge, MIT, Harvard and Princeton. The only university outside the UK and the USA among the top 20 is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EHT Zurich) in the 9th position.
Lomonosov University in Moscow (188th) is the best one from Eastern Europe.
Miller told the paper the Czech universities more or less maintained their positions. But this is no reason to rejoice because it in fact means that there is no improvement, he said.
LN writes that Charles University (UK), established in 1348, achieved better results in the latest versions of the two other prestigious rankings: the 302nd position in Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the 213th position in the Shanghai ARWU, which has been UK’s best result so far.
UK spokesman Vaclav Hajek recently said the university improved its position mainly thanks to the successes of researchers who got in the list of the most cited world scientists.
Ales Vlk, from the TERI think tank, criticised the Czech university system. “Instead of focusing on the primary achievements in teaching and research, the Czech environment – especially the legislation – unfortunately forces the universities to deal with paperwork more and more,” Vlk told LN.
kva/t/rtj
