Budapest’s Semmelweis University has climbed to 247th place in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027, making it the highest-ranked university in Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe.
Semmelweis University has made a major leap in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) global university rankings, entering the world’s top 250 universities for the first time. The Budapest-based medical university ranks 247th in the 2027 THE World University Rankings, up from 272nd last year.
The result also makes Semmelweis the highest-ranked university in both Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe.
The British-based Times Higher Education ranking is one of the world’s best-known university rankings. For its latest edition, THE assessed more than 20,000 higher education institutions from 118 countries and ranked around 2,200 of them.
Semmelweis particularly strong in research quality
THE evaluates universities across five broad areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry income and international outlook. Semmelweis performed particularly strongly in research quality, ranking 166th in the world in this category. It was also ranked 242nd for teaching.
According to the university, Semmelweis has placed within the top 25% of institutions worldwide in all five indicator groups.
THE also uses size-adjusted indicators, including the student-to-staff ratio, income per academic staff member and research citation impact. This is intended to prevent larger universities from gaining an advantage simply because of their size.
Semmelweis improved significantly in two of the five indicator groups and increased its score while maintaining its position in another.
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More than one-third of students are international
Semmelweis Rector Béla Merkely attributed the university’s progress partly to the close relationship between its education, patient care and research activities, as well as its strong international presence.
The university has almost 16,000 students, more than one-third of whom are international, coming from nearly 130 countries around the world.
The number of international applicants is also rising. According to Semmelweis, applications for its English-language programmes increased by almost 40% this year, while its general medicine programme received roughly three times as many applications as available places.
The university has partnerships with a number of internationally recognised institutions, including the Karolinska Institute, Mayo Clinic, the University of Oxford, Heidelberg University, the National University of Singapore and Harvard University.
How other Hungarian universities performed
Several other Hungarian universities also appear in the THE 2027 rankings. The Óbuda University was placed in the 601–800 range, while the University of Debrecen and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) were ranked between 801st and 1,000th.
The University of Szeged and University of Pécs both fell into the 1,001–1,200 range.
The Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) and Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) were placed between 1,201st and 1,500th.
The Széchenyi István University, University of Pannonia, University of Miskolc and Pázmány Péter Catholic University were all ranked in the 1,501+ category.
Within Central and Eastern Europe, Semmelweis leads the regional rankings. The University of Tartu in Estonia is in the 301–350 range, Charles University in the Czech Republic in the 401–500 range, while Wrocław Medical University and Jagiellonian University in Poland are in the 501–600 range.
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Oxford extends its record at the top
The University of Oxford remains at the top of the global ranking, extending its record to 11 consecutive years at No. 1, Telex reports. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranks second, while Princeton University and Stanford University share third place.
The top 10 consists exclusively of universities from the United States and the United Kingdom. For the first time, however, Asian universities collectively overtook European institutions in the rankings, with three Asian universities making the top 15.
University rankings come with caveats
University rankings have faced criticism in recent years because different ranking systems use different methodologies and attempt to compare institutions with very different profiles.
György Fábri, a lecturer at ELTE, previously argued that it was unrealistic to expect a Hungarian university to enter the top 100 of global rankings, pointing to the substantial financial gap between the world’s leading universities and Hungarian higher education.
He also described global university rankings as being particularly useful for international positioning and for showing roughly where an institution stands within the international research and higher education landscape.
Semmelweis itself has acknowledged the limitations of university rankings, noting that different methodologies can make comparisons between institutions with very different profiles difficult.
