RWTH Shines With Top Results in International Ranking
The Research.com portal regularly presents the best researchers in various scientific disciplines, also listing the universities that are particularly successful in these areas. The current edition examines the fields of computer science, business and management, economics and finance, electronics and electrical engineering, mathematics, and mechanical & aerospace engineering – with outstanding results for RWTH.
The ninth edition of the ranking, which is primarily based on scientific publications and citations, ranks RWTH second in Germany in the field of computer science. Two Aachen-based researchers have made it into the German Top 10: Professor Wil van der Aalst, RWTH Chair of Process and Data Science, takes first place in Germany. Worldwide, van der Aalst is ranked 10th. The ranking thus confirms the process mining expert as one of the most cited computer scientists in the world. The key research area of Professor Hermann Ney, who holds 9th place nationally, is speech recognition. In computer science, seven RWTH professors are listed among the top 50 researchers in Germany, with no other German university achieving a comparably strong result.
When it comes to mechanical engineering, RWTH is named Germany’s best university for the discipline. Globally, it secured an impressive 56th place. Professor Heinz Pitsch from the Institute of Technical Combustion has made it to second place in Germany and is one of the Top 100 authors in this scientific field worldwide.
Meanwhile, in electrical engineering, RWTH is the second best university in Germany, with a strong global rank of 65th. According to Research.com, the most prolific RWTH researcher in this discipline, ranked 16th in Germany, is Professor Dirk Uwe Sauer, who holds the Chair for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage Systems.
The ranking also attests to the strength of RWTH’s School of Business and Economics: In business administration, the School as a whole is ranked 5th nationally, while it secured 12th place in economics. Professor Reinhard Madlener (Chair of Economics with a focus on Energy Economics) is among the top ten in Germany in economics. In business administration, Professor Malte Brettel of the Chair of Economics for Engineers and Natural Scientists is the highest-ranked Aachen-based researcher, achieving 13th place, followed by Professor Frank Piller, Chair of Business Administration with a focus on Technology and Innovation Management, who secured 16th place nationally.
In mathematics, RWTH is ranked 130th in the world; Germany-wide, the department is placed 8th. The highest ranked researcher of the department is the deceased computer science professor Gerhard Woeginger, who achieved 11th place in Germany.
Research.com draws on various databases such as OpenAlex and CrossRef for its analyses. Researchers are ranked using the D-index, a variation of the H-index, which is used to measure citations of a researcher’s work within a discipline. All individuals who achieve a D-index of at least 30 are included in the rankings. The sum of the D-indices of all listed researchers of a university is decisive for its placement in the ranking.