In Our Own Field – THE Emerging Economics Ranking

In THE Emerging Economics Ranking institutions are ranked using THE World University Ranking Indicators, but assigning different weights to each indicator. This ranking includes only universities in countries classified by the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE Group, where Hungary is listed as advanced emerging country.

In this ranking, both the learning environment and research are ranked 30%, while research influence is only 20% (compared to 30% in World University Ranking), and international outlook and knowledge transfer both weight 10-10% (as opposed to 7.5% and 2.5%).

Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/emergingeconomies2020methodologytable.jpg

At first, in 2014 THE Emerging Economies ranked the top 100 institutes, then the number of ranked institutions rose to 200 and 300, and this year the rankings of more than 500 institutions from 47 countries were announced. The number of rival institutions for Hungarian universities decreased, because since 2019 Poland is not included in this ranking, as FTSE Russell announced the promotion of Poland to Developed market status. The number of examined institutions in the recent analysis is 36 from 7 different countries (beside Hungary Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia are included).

The best performing Hungarian university is still Semmelweis (70th) Though it fell back 3 places from last year’s rank, its scores are outstanding in the indicators of citations, international outlook and teaching among Hungarian participants. In industry income BME (231-300th) scored the highest, while ELTE is the best in research comparing to other Hungarian universities.

Rank

Name Overall Citations Industry Income International Outlook Research

Teaching

70 Semmelweis University 37.5 74 36.2 75.1 12.3 26.2
149 Eötvös Loránd University 30.2 48.2 35.1 52.8 17.7 21.4
176 University of Pécs 28.2 40.9 37.5 56 16.1 19.6
201–250 University of Szeged 25.0–27.2 36.6 36.5 54.5 12.4 21.8
251–300 Budapest University of Technology and Economics 22.7–24.9 25.3 44 34.8 15.8 17.4
251–300 University of Debrecen 22.7–24.9 28 37.7 55.7 10.6 19.9
301–350 Corvinus University of Budapest 20.9–22.6 23.6 34.4 44.7 13.7 17.8
351–400 Szent István University 19.1–20.8 17.8 35.4 40.2 10.5 16.5

Comparing to previous years, except for BME and Corvinus, each Hungarian institutes crawled back in their ranking places, despite of some increasing indicator scores. Greatest downturn is seen at Szeged, Pécs and ELTE: all of the three universities worsened 30 or more places in comparison to previous year. Debrecen transferred from 251-300th to 301-350th. Szent István University is a new entrant, ranked 351-400th.

2019 –› 2020

Rank Overall Citations Industry Income International Outlook Research

Teaching

Semmelweis University -3 2 7.6 0.2 -2.8 0.3 2
Eötvös Loránd University -30 1 3.7 -0.4 -0.4 -0.6 1.5
University of Pécs -35 0.6 3.3 -1.5 0.6 -0.6 0.8
University of Szeged -39 -0.4 -4.6 -0.8 1.8 1.3 2
Budapest University of Technology and Economics 0 2.85 -1.2 0.1 0.7 1.6 2.3
University of Debrecen -50 0.45 3.5 -4 4 2.2 0.8
Corvinus University of Budapest 0 2.9 3.3 0.2 1.9 2.5 2.3
Szent István University new entrant

Similar tendency appears when examining rival institutions. There are four more new entrants beside Hungarian Szent István University, three of them are in Czech Republic, and one from Romania.

From 24 universities there is only one which was able to step up: Palacky turned out to be 145th after last year’s 155th place. Although it is not surprising, as the university increased its scores in every indicator, producing a higher overall score.

Palacky University

Overall Citations Industry Income International Outlook Research

Teaching

2019 26.9 42.5 34.8 57.2 11.8 18.9
2020 30.4 46.9 35.4 57.5 18.3 20.9

The rest of the institutions – except for Tomas Bata University in Zlín, who stagnate – lost their previous positions. The most conspicuous are those, who crawled back more than 30 places or more than one category.

University

Country 2019 (overall 2019)

2020 (overall 2020)

University of Split Croatia 124 (28.8) 183 (27.9)
Masaryk University Czech Republic 106 (30.4) 136 (31.4)
Babes-Bolyai University Romania 166 (26.1) 201-250 (25.0-27.2)
Universitatea de Vest dinn Timisoara Romania 301-350 (17.9-19.8) 401-500 (15.8-19.0)
University of Bucharest Romania 201-250 (22.1–24.6) 401-500 (15.8-19.0)
Slovak University of Technology Bratislava Slovakia 301-350 (17.9-19.8) 401-500 (15.8-19.0)
University of Maribor Slovenia 182 (25.3) 251-300 (22.7-24.9)

As expected due to the increase in the number of featured institutions, overall scores and lower bounds of category intervals are getting higher, while related positions are lower. At the same time, we need to keep in mind, that some universities overall scores decreased and this is a straight line to a worse position, as sometimes higher scores are not enough either to higher position (which does not necessarily mean that one’s actual performance is worse, compared to previous years).

THE Emerging Economies was not favorable for the Hungarian and their rival institutions. With a slight improvement, most of the rankings show decline.

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