QS Ranking: ELTE Improves Its International Indicators
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) published its 2026 global university rankings on 19 June, featuring 1,500 institutions from over a hundred countries worldwide. The list was compiled based on ten weighted indicators: academic reputation, citations, employer satisfaction, graduate employment outcomes, teaching staff/student ratio, sustainability, as well as international education, research collaborations, and student body. More information on the methodology is available on this page.
Ten Hungarian institutions were included in the ranking. The University of Debrecen currently leads the national list, ranking 563rd globally. ELTE came in at 584th in the world and second nationally. Other Hungarian universities ranked among the top 1,000 are the University of Szeged (597th), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (711–720th), and the University of Pécs (741–750th). In the 1001–1200 range are the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), Széchenyi István University in Győr, and Óbuda University; while the University of Miskolc and the University of Pannonia are in the 1201–1400 category.
ELTE improved its performance over last year in the indicators assessing internationalization (research collaborations, proportion of international students). Based on the overall results, ELTE ranked ahead of, for example, the University of Siena, the University of Zaragoza, and the University of Zagreb in Europe. Among European institutions, Sorbonne University is 72nd, Heidelberg University is 80th, Charles University in Prague is 265th, and the University of Warsaw is 271st. Among ELTE’s CHARM-EU partner universities, Trinity College Dublin ranked 75th, Utrecht University 103rd, and the University of Barcelona 160th globally.
There are no new entries in this year’s top 10; the spots are still held by four American, four British, one Swiss, and one Singaporean university. The top three are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Imperial College London, and Stanford University, in that order. From China, Tsinghua University ranked 17th and Fudan University 30th. The most significant improvement on the list was made by Malaysia’s Sunway University, which jumped 120 places compared to last year.
The results of the QS 2026 global university ranking can be browsed by region and country on the organization's website. A summary of ELTE’s performance in national and international rankings is available on this link.