Every year in August, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) releases its overview of the 1,000 best universities in the world: The so-called Shanghai Ranking. This year the Copenhagen Science City partner University of Copenhagen has made a significant high-jump, leaping from number 39 to 32 in the world. ARWU rankings are based solely on scientific excellence.

Good news for innovation based on scientific breakthroughs

Copenhagen Science City is an innovation district where deep tech start-ups establish themselves in order to be near the researchers, students and staff, that are key to their research and development efforts. Since University of Copenhagen is the academic anchor organization in Copenhagen Science City its ranking is crucial to attract companies and talent into the district.

The latest ranking is great news. We hope to see many new companies collaborate with the University’s excellent researchers to create value to society:” Kristoffer Klebak, Head of secretariat, Copenhagen Science City.

Number two in the European Union and one in the nordic countries

The ARWU top-30 is dominated two to three by universities in the United States. According to this years’ ranking, the University of Copenhagen is number seven in Europe behind four British, one Swiss and a French university. As Switzerland and the UK are not in the European Union, this makes the Danish university number 2 in the EU trailing behind only the recently expanded Paris-Saclay University.

Measured by scientific publications and Nobel Prizes

All told Europe has 24 universities in the ARWU top-100. Two of these are Danish, (The other one is Aarhus) three are in Sweden while Finland and Norway each have one university in the coveted top-100. ARWU measures excellence by looking at publications in highly recognized scientific journals and by number of Fields medal winners and Nobel laureates , so it will have helped, that the 2022 laureate for chemistry, Morten Meldal, is a professor at University of Copenhagen.