KU Leuven Achieves New Heights: 43rd Place in 2025 Times Higher Education Rankings

KU Leuven has risen two places compared to last year’s Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings and is ranked 43rd worldwide. KU Leuven also maintains its position as the best Belgian university. This score is a new recognition of KU Leuven’s continuous efforts in the field of research, innovation and international cooperation.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are among the most prestigious university rankings. Institutions are evaluated in five core areas: Teaching, Research Environment, Research Quality, Industry and International Outlook. KU Leuven’s strong performance in all these categories underscores its continued commitment to academic excellence.

In the 2025 rankings, KU Leuven has achieved 43rd place worldwide out of 2,092 universities, with an overall score of 77.0. Within Belgium, KU Leuven remains the highest-ranked university in the country.

The university performed particularly well in the “Industry” pillar, where it achieved a perfect score of 100. This result reflects the university’s strong collaborations with industry and its leadership in knowledge transfer and innovation.

In the category “Research Environment”, KU Leuven excelled with top scores for both Research Productivity and Research Income. In addition, the university’s research quality was rated highly, with a total score of 92.4. Top scores were achieved, especially in terms of research influence (99.6) and research excellence (99.9).