Aalto University’s Art & Design now ranked 6th in the world

QS World University Rankings published its field-specific rankings for 2021 on 3 March. The rankings covered 51 academic fields and 1452 universities around the world.

In the field of Art & Design, Aalto University climbed to 6th position, improving its ranking from last year by one spot. A Finnish university has only reached this spot once before during the history of QS Rankings.

‘We are thrilled with this historic achievement, which reflects our long-term commitment to quality and international work. Great that it has been noticed in the world. I would like to thank and congratulate our entire community!’ expresses Tuomas Auvinen, Dean of the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture.

QS ranked Aalto 42nd in the field of architecture and built environment, and 71st in the field of business and management studies. Three of Aalto’s fields broke into the top 100: engineering – electrical & electronic rose to 79th position, computer science & information systems to 96th and materials science to 98th.

Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology shared the status of world’s best university, each ranking as global number-one in twelve fields.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject emphasise both the university’s reputation in the world of academia and among employers, as well as research publications and citation numbers. The weighing of these different factors in the results varies between fields.

The QS World University Rankings also compare universities as a whole and Aalto ranked 127th in the last QS overall rankings.

Aalto University specialises in technology, business studies and art, and thus the most relevant rankings for Aalto are field- and subject-specific. Depending on the criteria used, there are between 17 000 and 22 000 universities in the world.