QS Rating Ranks RSU Among World’s Leading Medical Schools
This year, Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) was ranked among the world’s best medical universities for the first time, according to the recently published QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021.
The ranking lists the world’s leading universities in various fields.
Until now, no Latvian university has made it onto this prestigious rating in the field of medicine. Only one other Latvian university besides RSU has been included in this ranking - Riga Technical University.
‘The QS ratings are like the Oscars of the academic world – it is very high praise of our teachers, study quality and environment. This is great news for our current and future students,’ says RSU Rector Professor Aigars Pētersons.
The QS World University Rankings by Subject are published each spring, which is around the time when prospective students are making their final decisions about where to study. The purpose of the rating is to help new students identify the leading universities in a particular subject.
In the aforementioned medical rating, RSU is ranked among the best 550 out of more than 1,000 medical universities evaluated globally. To be included in the list universities have to demonstrate globally competitive results in four areas: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, and the Hirsch or H-index. The rating evaluates only those universities that have a certain number of scientific publications indexed in the Scopus database in the last five years. RSU has scored the highest in two QS World University Rankings by Subject categories in the field of medicine: research citations per paper and employer reputation.
In total, the rating includes 51 disciplines that are grouped into five broad subject areas: Arts & Humanities, Engineering and Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Management. This year, more than 1,450 universities from around the world entered the QS World University Rankings by Subject.
Over the past three years, RSU has maintained a steady position in the QS World University Rankings, placing in the 801-1000 range. According to QS data, RSU has been able to improve its performance every year despite its stable position in the overall ratings. Last year, the QS ranking rated RSU's ability to attract international students the highest. The proportion of international students at RSU has allowed it to rank 168th in the world in this category. Performance indicators also show an increase in the assessed share of international academic staff and employer reputation.