THE ranking places Aber among top 200 unis in Europe

Disappointing rankings place Aberystwyth the 161st best university in Europe.

The Times Higher Education survey analyses the world’s top universities, and has now published its latest top 200 universities in Europe ranking.

Although Aber can impress with its international outlook and research influence, even Bangor managed to beat us.

But when taking a closer look, it appears we are improving in terms of research and teaching environment.

The top three unsurprisingly feature Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial College London. Overall, the UK has topped the league table, represented with nearly one third of the places (46).

The criteria of interest were measurements of teaching environment, research, citations (i.e. research influence), industry income and international outlook. Aberystwyth, placed 161, performed particularly well in the categories citation and international outlook.

Only recently, Aber’s welcoming and international outlook on the EU has been confirmed by a survey, so it comes as no surprise its international outlook is fixed with 72.2, while 18 per cent of its student body are international students.

Another strength of our little seaside university is its research influence in its respective fields. In the category citations Aber scored 67.2 points, and outranked Swansea, Kent and Loughborough universities by far.

However, all time rival Bangor University performed that little bit better than Aber Uni. While Aber only made the top 161-170, Bangor is placed 151 in this year’s rankings. I

n both categories research (22.1) and teaching (22.6), Bangor beat Aber by a hair. Aber achieved 18.9 in research and 21.6 in teaching respectively.

It is looking like Aber is working its way up in the rankings, however there is still a long way to go.