Semmelweis University Climbs to 247th in Times Higher Education World Rankings

Semmelweis University has achieved its highest position to date in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, entering the ranks of the world’s top 250 higher education institutions for the first time. According to the newly released World University Rankings 2027, the Budapest-based medical and health sciences university now stands at 247th place globally, a substantial advance from its position in the top 300 band last year, when it was ranked 272nd. The result makes Semmelweis the highest-ranked university not only in Hungary but across the entire Central and Eastern European region, marking a milestone for a institution whose historical focus has always been medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and the health sciences.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027 evaluated the leading 2,200 universities drawn from a pool of more than 20,000 higher education institutions worldwide, spanning 118 countries. Times Higher Education, based in the United Kingdom, is widely regarded as one of the oldest and most respected global university rankings. Its methodology rests on five broad pillars: Teaching, which includes measures such as teaching reputation; Research Environment, encompassing research reputation, research income, and research productivity; Research Quality, which is anchored in citation impact; Industry, which tracks how often a university’s work is cited in patents; and International Outlook, which considers the share of international students and the extent of international co-authorship. A distinctive feature of the THE methodology is its use of size-independent indicators, including the student-to-faculty ratio, revenue per faculty member, and citation impact, a design choice intended to prevent larger universities from gaining an advantage over smaller institutions purely on the basis of scale.

Semmelweis University’s climb in the 2027 edition was driven by measurable gains across the indicator groups. The university advanced considerably in two of the five areas, improved its score in a third, and held its position in the remainder. Taken as a whole, the university placed in the top 25 percent for every one of the five indicator groups. Its strongest performance came in Research Quality, measured through the number of citations in the relevant field, where Semmelweis ranks 166th in the world. Its second-best result came in the Teaching indicator group, where it was placed 242nd globally. These figures suggest that the university’s research output is being cited at a rate that places it among the most influential institutions in its field, while its teaching environment remains competitive on a global scale.

University leadership attributed the achievement to the institution’s integrated structure, which links education, patient care, and scientific research within a single clinical ecosystem. “This outstanding achievement is primarily due to the synergy that characterizes Semmelweis University. We are a medical and health sciences university surrounded by a clinical structure that is also a significant player in the scientific community. Our three core activities – education, healthcare, and science and innovation – reinforce one another, and each is centered on ensuring that our patients receive the best possible care. To this end, we have revised our curriculum to place even greater emphasis on practice-oriented education. Thanks to this, we are able to conduct a steady stream of significant observations, which leads to outstanding scientific achievements year after year,” said Dr. Béla Merkely, the university’s rector.

Commenting on the results, the rector pointed to further improvements in academic performance and the university’s strong international presence as the key drivers of this year’s progress. Semmelweis is among the most internationally diverse universities in the world: more than a third of its nearly 16,000 students come from outside Hungary, representing almost 130 countries. Demand for its English-language programs continues to rise, with nearly 40 percent more students applying this year than in previous years. That surge means the general medical program is now approximately three times oversubscribed, a signal of the growing global reputation that the ranking result both reflects and reinforces.

The university’s international engagement extends well beyond student recruitment. Semmelweis has established partnerships with world-class institutions including the Karolinska Institute, the Mayo Clinic, the Universities of Oxford and Heidelberg, and the National University of Singapore. It has also launched a postgraduate program with Harvard University for the fourth time, a collaboration that underscores the depth of its ties to leading academic medical centers. Such partnerships are increasingly important in modern health sciences education, where clinical training, translational research, and international mobility are tightly interwoven, and they provide channels through which research findings and educational practices circulate between institutions.

Dr. Péter Ferdinandy, Vice-Rector for Science and Innovations at Semmelweis University, described the university’s progress in international rankings as an undeniable achievement, and noted that the new result is consistent with strong performances in subject-specific rankings earlier in the year. In Times Higher Education’s 2026 World University Rankings by Subject, released at the beginning of the year, Semmelweis is already listed among the world’s top 200 in its own discipline, medicine and health sciences. In ShanghaiRanking’s latest Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, the university appears in the world’s top 50 band in Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and among the top 200 in Clinical Medicine, Dentistry & Oral Sciences, and Medical Technology. Together, these subject-level results paint a picture of an institution whose specialized strengths align closely with its overall standing.

“A structure has been established at Semmelweis University that can be considered unique even on the international level, and thanks to this, the university has been able to make significant progress in higher education rankings. The clinic achieves this level of performance based on theoretical and translational research. The primary goal remains to ensure that research findings are put to use directly at the patient’s bedside as soon as possible,” emphasized Dr. Péter Ferdinandy. In his view, improving the university’s ranking position will ultimately ensure that Semmelweis trains doctors and healthcare professionals of an even higher quality who can care for patients more effectively. The vice-rector’s comments highlight a philosophy in which rankings are not an end in themselves but a byproduct of a research-to-bedside pipeline that places clinical benefit at the center of institutional strategy.

The 2027 rankings also clarify Semmelweis’s standing within its region. In Central and Eastern Europe, the University of Tartu in Estonia ranks 301–350, Charles University in the Czech Republic ranks 401–500, and Wrocław Medical University and Jagiellonian University in Poland are listed in the 501–600 range, leaving Semmelweis clearly ahead of its regional peers. At the very top of the global table, the University of Oxford took first place, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in second, with Princeton University and Stanford University tied for third. The concentration of elite Anglo-American institutions at the summit of global rankings remains a familiar pattern, which makes the advance of a specialized medical university from Central Europe into the top 250 particularly notable.

University rankings have faced criticism in recent years, as they attempt to compare institutions with fundamentally different profiles using criteria that are, in some cases, difficult to compare directly. The practice of ranking higher education institutions dates back more than 150 years, but truly global rankings did not emerge until the early 2000s, when Times Higher Education launched its list in 2004 in collaboration with Quacquarelli Symonds; the two organizations have since gone their separate ways. Despite the methodological debates, globally recognized rankings such as THE continue to serve as important points of reference both domestically and internationally. They help students navigate among thousands of institutions, contribute to universities’ international visibility and reputation, and can have significant implications for potential institutional and research collaborations. Beyond the headline position, the individual indicators provide quantifiable and comparable insight into specific areas of an institution’s educational and research activities, and for Semmelweis University, the 2027 figures suggest that a strategy built on the integration of education, healthcare, and science is yielding measurable returns on the world stage.

Subject of Research: Semmelweis University's rise to 247th place in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027

Article Title: THE Ranking: Semmelweis among the world’s top 250 universities

Article References: THE Ranking: Semmelweis among the world’s top 250 universities. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: Semmelweis University, Times Higher Education, World University Rankings 2027, higher education, Hungary, Central and Eastern Europe, medical education, research quality, citation impact, international students, university rankings, health sciences