This year's ranking sees UZH leap 46 places to 90th (previous year: 136th). With ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne coming in first and second among Swiss universities, the University of Zurich ranks third in Switzerland ahead of the universities of Basel, Bern and Geneva.

The performance indicators of the annual Times Higher Education World University Ranking are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer).

The University of Zurich achieved higher scores than in the previous year in four of the five areas. The most pronounced improvement came in the areas of research and citations, which indicate papers published per scholar, funding available for research as well as citation rates.

Another positive development came in the teaching area, with an increased doctorate-to-bachelor's student ratio as well as a higher ratio of doctorates to academic staff; the reputation survey among students also saw a slight increase.

This year's THE rankings also saw UZH improve in the area of industry income (funds from industry that are available to academic staff), while the international outlook category remained at a very high level. UZH has become even more international in the past year, but other universities improved even more in this area.

The exact reasons for UZH's improved ranking can only be guessed, since it is difficult to see through how the indicators are determined in the THE rankings. The data used for this year's ranking was more detailed as in previous years, for example including a break-down of full-time equivalents per subject.

The THE Rankings 2019

The rankings methodology 2019