CWUR: University of Zagreb among 2.6% of world’s best universities

University of Zagreb (Photo: Suradnik13/CC license)

ZAGREB, June 13 (Hina) – The University of Zagreb has been ranked 517th by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2020, which puts it among 2.6 percent of the best universities in the world, the University of Zagreb said in a statement on Friday.

In addition to the University of Zagreb, the University of Split also made it into the CWUR ranking, placing 763rd.

The statement noted that different global rankings take into account different criteria and indicators in analysing the excellence and success of institutions of higher education.

For instance, Round University Ranking, in which the University of Zagreb ranks 581st, analyses, among other indicators, scientific productivity, taking into account the number of scientific publications in relation to funding. Based on this indicator, the University of Zagreb is ranked 79th in the world, the statement said.

It also noted that Croatian universities operate in a complex environment because Croatia allocates only 0.86% of GDP for research and development. By comparison, Germany allocates 3.02%, Austria 3.16%, the United States 2.79% and South Korea as much as 4.55% of GDP for this purpose.

Since the quality and funding are connected, low investment in research has an adverse effect on the global ranking of Croatian universities. Currently, scientific work is supported with about HRK 11,000 (€1,500) per scientist annually, which is not enough to publish a scientific paper in an open-access journal, and is certainly not adequate to finance scientific work, the statement said.

In 2019, the ranking expanded to list the top 2000 out of twenty thousand universities worldwide, making the CWUR ranking the largest academic ranking of global universities.