The Liszt Academy of Music, one of the leading universities of the region ranked among the top higher education institutes

4 March 2019

The Liszt Academy of Music is ranked among the top 100 universities in the world in performing arts based on the rankings released at the end of February.

The British Quacquarelli Symonds, which prepares one of the most well-known higher education rankings released their Rankings by Subject recently. The QS World University Rankings by Subject identifies the world's strongest universities in 48 individual subject areas, including performing arts. Only two universities besides the Liszt Academy of Music, the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Moscow State Academy of Choreography (The Bolshoi Ballet Academy) were ranked top 100 from the Central and Eastern European universities. By tradition, the QS only releases group rankings beyond the top 50.

 

 
 

Ten Hungarian universities were ranked this year by subjects. Semmelweis University ranked 308 in Life Sciences and Medicine and Eötvös Lóránd University got the best Hungarian ranking at 340 in Natural Sciences Eötvös.

The QS international rankings by subject consider five aspects:

The institute’s academic reputation. The musicology research of the Liszt Academy of Music and the scientific activities in the Kodály Institute and Liszt Museum are outstanding even in an international comparison, a success indicator of which is the regular invitation of the Academy’s research colleagues to international institutes such as the Bard College in the United States or other prestigious institutes. The Academy’s researchers play a leading role in coordinating the network of international Liszt memorials and the joint work. (It collates the expert opinions of over 80,000 individuals in the higher education space regarding teaching and research quality at the world’s universities. The result counted for 40% of the total score.)

Research citations per paper. The Academy’s research conclusions are often cited, as the continuous development of the Kodaly Method and the strengthening of the Liszt cult. QS assessed 66 million citations from 13 million papers and the result constituted 20% of the final score.

Faculty/student ratio - the number of students per faculty member is an important aspect. The Academy performed well in this as a result of the individual training, where two or more teachers work with one student per class. This ratio resulted in 20% of the final score during the ranking.

Employer reputation - employers’ opinions of the institution's employability performance. Graduates of the Academy are very popular on the music “labour market”, they are offered opportunities in the world’s biggest music halls, their international presence is indisputable. As a supportive example: all three Hungarian Vienna Philharmonic violoncello leaders are graduates of the Academy. This score accounted for 10% of the final score, based on 40.000 interviews with employers.

Institute’s international openness and the proportion of international faculty and International students –the Academy’s outstanding international relations of decades, the large number of international students and international cooperations must have played an important role. The proportion of international students at the Academy exceed 20%, only the Semmelweis University performs better in this metric.