Best Universities of France

An assessment carried out by AllAboutUni revealsParis 06 (ranked 42nd in the world), 2. University of
that France has a relatively low density of theParis 11 (49th), 3. Ecole Normale Superieure Paris
World's Top universities compared to other countries(73rd), 4. University of Paris 07 (101-151) and
in the world. AllAboutUni is an independent, global andUniversity of Strasbourg (101-151). Overall, the
interactive websites where visitors can obtain‘Grandes Ecoles’ only represent 5 of the
information about universities (global rankings, studenttop-23 universities in France and there is a very high
reviews, university news and campus pictures).representation of universities located in Paris (9 out
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)of 23).
is produced by the Institute of Higher Education atIn order to make inter-country comparisons,
the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several indicatorscalculates the number of universities in the
of academic or research performance are used toWorld’s Top-500 per million inhabitants. The
establish the ranking, these include highly citedoverall number of universities per million inhabitants is
researchers, articles indexed in major citation indices0.5 for industrialised countries. An earlier assessment
and staff winning Nobel Prizes.found that small countries in Western Europe
The World’s Top-500 universities (2008) are(Sweden (1.2), Finland (1.1) and Switzerland (1.0)) and
mainly located in Europe (n=210; 40%), the AmericasNew Zealand (1.2) have the highest number of
(n=190; 40%) and the Asian/Pacific region (n=100;universities per million inhabitants.
20%) There are 23 universities located in France,The number of universities in the World’s
representing 11% of the European universities in theTop-500 universities that are located in France is 0.4
ARWU ranking.per million inhabitants. Other large industrialized
France has a population of 64 million inhabitants andcountries have the following figures: Australia (0.7),
the eighth largest economy in the world and fourththe Netherlands (0.7), United Kingdom (0.7), Canada
third in Western Europe (in terms of Gross Domestic(0.6), United States (0.5), Germany (0.5), France (0.4),
Product), after USA, China, Japan, India, Germany,Italy (0.4), Japan (0.2), South Korea (0.2) and Spain
United Kingdom and Russia.(0.2). This means that France performance is
Universities in France are predominantly publicrelatively low compared to other industrialised
institutions. Interestingly, the best students attendcountries.
the ‘Grandes Ecoles’ ['Grand Schools'] (aAt the top of the ARWU ranking, there are only
higher education establishment outside thethree French universities in the World’s Top-100
mainstream framework of the public universitiesuniversities. This compares to 54 for the US, 11 for
system). Whilst the universities are open to allthe UK, 6 for Germany, 4 each for Canada, Japan
students who finish their high school education (withand Sweden, and 3 for Australia and Switzerland. All
a ‘Baccalauréat’), the ‘Grandesother countries have fewer than 3 universities in the
Ecoles’ require an additional entrance exam whichWorld’s Top-100 universities.
is highly competitive.In conclusion, France performs poorly when its
In comparison to French universities, theuniversities are compared to other industrialised
‘Grandes Ecoles’ are relatively smallcountries in the world. Its best university is only
institutions. For example, the University of Paris 06ranked 42nd in the world and there are only three
(ranked 42rd in the world) has 30,000 students anduniversities in the World’s Top-100 universities.
the Ecole Normale Superieure Paris (ranked 73rd inLooking at the density of top universities per million
the world) has 2,000 students.inhabitants also reveals a poor performance
The Top-5 universities in France are: 1. University ofcompared to other industrialised countries.