In the Times Higher Education (THE) Ranking, the University of Ulm comes off excellently. In the ranking of “Golden Age” universities, it has repeatedly improved its position in the last two years: in Germany it is now – behind the Free University of Berlin – the second best university in this age group. Worldwide, the University of Ulm achieved an outstanding 14th place. The “Golden Age” ranking list includes universities from all over the world that are older than 50 and younger than 80. The University of Ulm did particularly well with 94.9 out of 100 possible points in the criteria “scientific influence” (citation index), and with 75.7 out of 100 possible points in the area of “knowledge transfer” (industry funds).

The university rankings of the British publishing house Times Higher Education (THE) are among the most comprehensive and renowned worldwide. The rankings are based on 13 criteria from the four different areas of research, teaching, internationality and knowledge transfer. Decisive for the ranking in the area of research, which alone accounts for 60 percent of the total, are research funds, productivity and scientific influence. This is measured on the basis of third-party funds raised, the number of specialist publications and the so-called citation index, which indicates how often a scientific contribution is cited in specialist circles. The University of Ulm has a particularly excellent result for this scientific performance indicator, which plays a decisive role in THE Ranking. The key criteria in teaching, which in total account for 30 percent of the final result, include the supervision ratio, the qualification structure of the teaching staff and financial resources. In the areas of internationality and knowledge transfer, the survey included the proportion of international students and employees as well as the number of international cooperation projects.

The Times Higher Education (THE) “Golden Age” ranking is led by the University of California, San Diego, followed by the Australian National University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong in third place. This special ranking is part of THE World University Ranking, which includes universities from all age groups worldwide, and in which the University of Ulm achieved a very good 141st place in 2020. In THE “Young University” Ranking, also part of the World University Ranking, the University of Ulm held the title of “Best Young University in Germany” several times until its 50th birthday.