Best universities in Europe for teaching

Times Higher Education has produced a student-focused ranking to determine the best universities for teaching across Europe. 

Instead of placing a focus on research output and quality, as many international university rankings do, the 2019 Europe Teaching Rankings determines the best universities for teaching quality and learning opportunities for students. 

One of the key components of the ranking was THE's European Student Survey, taken by 125,000 university students in 18 countries across Europe. Students rated their university on a scale of zero to 10 across a number of aspects of their university life, including collaborative learning, critical thinking and application of learning to the real world. 

The Student Survey accounted for 45 per cent of the university’s final scores and fed into six of the 14 performance indicators used to rank the institutions. To view the full methodology and all of the questions asked in the Student Survey click here. 

The ranking is modelled on the WSJ/THE US College Rankings and the Japan University Rankings, which aim to keep the student experience at the core of the data collection. 

The top five of the Europe Teaching Rankings is dominated by UK universities, with the University of St Andrews respectively. 

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Best universities in Europe

Best universities in Scotland

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Top five universities in Europe for teaching

1. University of Oxford, UK

Regularly ranking highly in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the University of Oxford is well known for providing high-quality teaching and learning. 

International students make up approximately 43 per cent of the student body, coming from the USA, China, Singapore, France, Germany and Italy, among other nations. 

The university is split into a collegiate structure with 38 separate colleges, each with its own unique identity and history. 

Because of its strong reputation within the higher education sector, the university has a competitive admissions stream, with approximately six applications per university place. Students are able to specify their college of choice or leave it open in their application. Students will then be allocated a college based on their individual interests and strengths. Prospective students are invited for an interview that is known to test a student’s knowledge of their chosen subject and their critical thinking skills. 

2. University of Cambridge, UK

In second place is the University of Cambridge, also located in the UK. At more than 800 years old, the institution has become a true hallmark of the high-quality higher education that Europe can offer. 

Like Oxford, Cambridge follows a collegiate structure with 31 separate colleges that are governed by the teaching staff attached to those colleges. Students are encouraged to socialise and spend time in their own colleges. 

In the European Student Survey, the university scored very highly on access to learning materials. This includes libraries (of which there are more than 100, housing more than 15 million books), labs and online material. 

3. University of Navarra, Spain

The University of Navarra has six campuses in Pamplona, San Sebastian, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich and New York City. The main campus is in Pamplona. 

The university initially started as a law school and has now expanded to include 14 faculties, two university schools, 17 institutes, a business school, and other centres and institutions. 

The university also runs a teaching hospital where medical professionals treat more that 100,000 patients a year as well carrying out medical research. 

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Student experience in Europe

University of Cambridge

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4. UCL, UK

UCL was established in 1826, originally under the name London University. It then became University College, London in 1836 and is now mostly referred to as UCL.

The university is primarily located in Bloomsbury, central London. A number of other buildings are dotted around the city, as well as a new campus in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, which is known as UCL East. 

Admissions to the university are highly selective, with many prospective students expected to receive the highest grades in their school exams to gain entry. 

5. University of St Andrews, UK

The University of St Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland and is the third oldest university in the UK , after the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 

Over 900 degree courses are now offered at the university, organised across four faculties: arts, divinity, medicine, and science.

It was one of the first universities in the UK to admit female students back in 1892. 

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Top 100 universities in Europe for teaching excellence

View the full 2019 Europe Teaching Ranking here