Founded in 1425, KU Leuven is one of the oldest and most renowned research universities in Europe. Its excellent performance has been echoed in international scoreboards time and time again. 

This year, KU Leuven claims 42nd place in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings – often considered one of the most widely observed university rankings – retaining its same position among the world’s top 50 universities as last year. As such, KU Leuven also remains the highest-ranking of Flanders’ top-notch universities.

Times Higher Education magazine builds its ranking based on four parameters:

• education
• research
• internationalization
• valorization 

Results regarding education and research are the most decisive, as these two parameters combined account for 90% of the scores. As it did last year, KU Leuven further improved its performance in education. Its high-standing research was also recognized with outstanding scores, especially as regards research funding and the number of scientific publications per researcher.

The remaining 10% of the scores are determined by the reviewed universities’ international character (7.5%) and valorization of research or industry income (2.5%). For this last parameter, KU Leuven received its highest scores ever, catapulting the Flanders-based university to the 19th place for valorization in the international ranking.