QS annually compares universities in 5 broad subject areas (Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences , Social Sciences & Management) and 51 narrower disciplines. The 2022 ranking includes 1,543 institutions from 161 countries. Among the best in the world there are 23 Polish universities (6 more than last year). In this year’s ranking the University of Wrocław was evaluated in the field of Natural Sciences, in which it took a place in the range of 451-500 best higher education institutions in the world. This field includes such disciplines as Mathematics. In this discipline the University of Wrocław was ranked between 401 and 451 (5th place among Polish higher education institutions and 3rd among Polish universities). In addition, within Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy has been rated 451-500, maintaining last year’s result (also 5th place in Poland and 3rd among universities). In Natural Sciences field, Chemistry was rated as well, receiving a place between 501 and 550.

Biology (Life Sciences & Medicine subject area) achieved a big promotion this year. From last year’s place in the 601-620 range, it jumped to a place of 501-550 of the best universities in the world for this discipline. In the field of Biology we are on the 4th place among Polish higher education institutions. We are preceded only by the University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

The methodology of the QS by Subject ranking is based on several key indicators, of which the most important is the reputation of a given university among the academic staff. Depending on the broad subject area evaluated, this indicator has a weighting of between 40% (Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences) and as much as 60% (Arts & Humanities). For narrower disciplines, the indicator can have an even higher weighting of up to 70 %. QS obtains opinions on the quality of research and education at particular universities from surveys of 130,000 researchers worldwide, to whom ranking questionnaires are sent.

A second important indicator, also obtained from surveys, is the reputation of the university and its graduates among employers (QS survey is based on opinions of 75,000 employers). This indicator has a weighting from 10% (Life Sciences & Medicine) to 30% (Engineering & Technology, Social Sciences & Management). Other indicators are Citations with a weight of 7.5% for Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences & Management, 10% for Engineering & Technology, 15% for Natural Sciences and 20% for Life Sciences & Medicine. The Hirsch index has exactly the same weights. The last indicator to be taken into account is the so-called IRN or International Research Network, which measures the efficiency with which institutions create stable international research collaborations. IRN has a weight of 5% to 10%.

In Academic Reputation, University of Wrocław’s best performance is in Mathematics, in which it scores 57. As for Employer Reputation, the university’s best performance came in Biological Sciences where it earned a score of 57.2. In Citations per Paper, Physics & Astronomy is the subject in which University of Wrocław earned the highest score (78.8). In H-Index, University of Wrocław received a score of 62.1 for Mathematics – its highest-scoring subject for this indicator.

Due to the very high importance of Academic Reputation indicator (we have already written about it here), especially in the case of humanities and social sciences, we reiterate our appeal to complete the reputation surveys which are being sent to our researchers by the QS ranking, as well as by other leading university rankings.

Detailed information on the ranking results can be found here.