Ranking of Baltic Universities, 2022-2023

Rank	Institution	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
🥇	University of Tartu 🇪🇪	501	296	201	256	313.5
🥈	Vilnius University 🇱🇹	701	400	801	801	651
🥉	Riga Stradins University 🇱🇻	NR	801	601	NR	701
4	Tallinn University of Technology 🇪🇪	NR	701	601	1017	773
5	University of Latvia 🇱🇻	NR	1001	801	1022	~941.33
6	Riga Technical University 🇱🇻	NR	751	1201	NR	976
7=	Tallinn University 🇪🇪	NR	1001	1001	NR	1001
7=	Vytautas Magnus University 🇱🇹	NR	801	1201	NR	1001
UR	Mykolas Romeris University 🇱🇹	NR	1001	NR	NR	1001
9	Vilnius Gediminas Technical University 🇱🇹	NR	701	1201	1498	~1133.33
10	Lithuanian University of Health Sciences 🇱🇹	NR	NR	801	1553	1177
11	Kaunas University of Technology 🇱🇹	NR	801	1201	1694	1232
UR	Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies 🇱🇻	NR	NR	1501	NR	1501

Figure 1. Ranking of Baltic Universities 2022-2023

This is a ranking of the top Baltic universities ranked relative to each other for the year 2022-2023.

Overview and methodology

The ranking was created by using metadata sourced from the four prominent rankings of world universities (each ranking released in 2022): Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), and U.S. News & World Report (USNWR).

Rank was determined on each list for every Baltic university ranked on any list. Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown above (Figure 1). The leftmost column shows rank based on average, the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

Only universities which were ranked on at least two lists are counted. Universities which would have appeared had they been ranked by all the rankings are displayed in the ranking where they would have ranked if their average rank was the result of an average across all four rankings. Rather than receiving a ranking placement, universities appearing in these positions are marked “UR” (unrankable) in the rank column, and “NR” (not ranked) in rankings lists in which they were not ranked.

Observations

• University of Tartu 🇪🇪 remains the top ranked Baltic university. However, its average world rank has declined slightly from 301.75 (https://snmcgannon.com/2022/06/16/top-10-baltic-universities-2021/) to 313.5.
• Vilnius University 🇱🇹 and Riga Stradins University 🇱🇻 round out the top 3, with Vilnius ranking 2nd and Riga Stradins ranking 3rd, having swapped positions from last year.
• Vytautas Magnus University 🇱🇹 enters the ranking proper for the first time with a world average rank of 1001st, putting in tied 7th with Tallinn University 🇪🇪 (which was also 7th last year with the unchanged average world rank of 1001).
• Most Baltic universities have declined in ranking since last year. However, Tallinn University of Technology 🇪🇪 has moved upwards significantly from approx. 860th in 2021-2022, to 773rd in 2022-2023. This represents the greatest upward movement of any Baltic university. Vilnius University 🇱🇹 also moved upward, though by less than 10 places.

In my opinion, global university rankings are not a measure of how “good” a university is. They are, centrally, a measure of university reputation among people in administrative positions in academics. How good a university is for you depends on what your goals are. It is almost entirely contextual. Thus, the rankings I do — which are based on average placements in world university rankings — ought to be seen not as a measure of how good a university is, but as a measure of the average opinion of an academic administrator you’ll get if you ask them to talk about a given university from a global perspective. In this spirit, I offer you a deflationary university ranking.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

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