Riga Technical university’s performance in engineering studies is recognized as the highest in Latvia in the international ranking «Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2022 by Subject». In comparison with other Latvian higher education institutions, RTU ranks in 601–800 positions among the world’s best engineering universities.
«The World University Rankings 2022 by subject: Engineering» includes a total of 1188 world-leading universities in the fields of engineering, energy and electronics, mechanics and aeronautics, construction, and chemical engineering. This year the competition is higher compared to last year, when 1,098 universities were included in this category.
In the ranking, higher education institutions are evaluated according to several criteria – studies, scientific achievements, citation, international cooperation, cooperation with industry. In the engineering sciences section, RTU has the highest evaluation of cooperation with the industry. Among Latvian higher education institutions, the Latvia University of Agriculture is also included in this rating section, ranking in 1001+ position. Similar to RTU, the performance of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University in engineering has been evaluated with 601–800 position, while Kaunas University of Technology ranked 801-1000. Tallinn University of Technology ranked in 500-601 position. Harvard University (USA) takes the first place in the ranking, Stanford University (USA) is in the second place, and the University of California (USA) is in third.
However, RTU is the only Latvian higher education institution that has entered the ranking «THE World University Rankings 2022 by subject: Computer Science» which evaluates the performance of higher education institutions in computer science. RTU takes 801st place in this ranking. RTU's cooperation with industry is also highly valued in this position.
The cooperation of universities with industry in the ranking is assessed by how much income the university has gained from knowledge transfer. The science criterion considers the results of the reputation survey, the university's income from research and its productivity. The criterion of internationalization evaluates the proportion of the number of foreign students and lecturers, as well as international cooperation in research according to the citation indicators of scientific publications. Performance in studies is evaluated according to the results of the reputation survey, the mutual relations between the number of students and the number of lecturers, the proportion of lecturers with a doctoral degree, as well as other indicators. In turn, citation or the impact of research reveals the role of universities in creating and disseminating new knowledge and ideas.
