Switzerland University Research Rankings
Compare Switzerland universities using recent research output, citation impact, growth and a transparent research-performance score.
Research landscape
The current ITS Research Intelligence dataset contains 62 index-ready universities in Switzerland. Across those institutions, the average five-year research output is approximately 7,139 works and the average five-year citation count is approximately 78,877. The average publication-growth signal is 44.4%. These figures describe the institutions that pass the public quality gate; they are not intended to represent every tertiary institution in the country.
Country rankings are useful for benchmarking because they reduce some of the structural differences that make global comparisons difficult. They still should not be treated as a complete assessment of institutional quality: teaching, student outcomes, funding levels, research field mix and institutional mission are outside this research-performance score. The value of the page is in seeing who is producing research, how that activity is changing, and where citation visibility is concentrated.
Top research universities in Switzerland
| Rank | University | Country | Score | 5-year works | 5-year citations | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 86.8 | 76,360 | 1,012,193 | 10.6% |
| #2 | University of Zurich | Switzerland | 85.1 | 61,651 | 748,628 | 1.0% |
| #3 | University of Bern | Switzerland | 84.7 | 51,579 | 588,488 | 4.1% |
| #4 | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Switzerland | 84.6 | 45,144 | 564,571 | 16.8% |
| #5 | University of Geneva | Switzerland | 82.9 | 37,415 | 458,980 | -0.3% |
| #6 | University of Lausanne | Switzerland | 82.2 | 37,192 | 423,800 | 11.3% |
| #7 | University of Basel | Switzerland | 81.9 | 34,010 | 405,965 | 3.4% |
| #8 | Università della Svizzera italiana | Switzerland | 73.7 | 7,230 | 92,287 | 11.1% |
| #9 | University of Fribourg | Switzerland | 72.2 | 13,185 | 98,722 | 14.0% |
| #10 | University of St.Gallen | Switzerland | 69.7 | 6,521 | 56,557 | 4.0% |
| #11 | Bern University of Applied Sciences | Switzerland | 68.6 | 8,205 | 53,137 | 65.6% |
| #12 | University of Neuchâtel | Switzerland | 68.6 | 6,942 | 41,731 | 41.5% |
| #13 | Swiss Finance Institute | Switzerland | 67.2 | 2,150 | 22,846 | 19.7% |
| #14 | ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences | Switzerland | 67.0 | 4,843 | 44,524 | -2.4% |
| #15 | HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland | Switzerland | 66.4 | 4,981 | 39,638 | 14.0% |
| #16 | University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland | Switzerland | 66.1 | 3,581 | 28,629 | 5.0% |
| #17 | FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland | Switzerland | 65.0 | 3,560 | 28,836 | 15.3% |
| #18 | University Centre of Legal Medicine | Switzerland | 63.0 | 747 | 9,315 | 73.1% |
| #19 | University of Lucerne | Switzerland | 62.3 | 5,369 | 28,179 | 32.2% |
| #20 | Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies | Switzerland | 61.7 | 2,997 | 18,069 | 58.2% |
| #21 | Life Science Zurich | Switzerland | 61.4 | 519 | 9,112 | -14.9% |
| #22 | HES-SO Genève | Switzerland | 58.6 | 1,811 | 9,482 | 52.0% |
| #23 | Swiss Data Science Center | Switzerland | 58.1 | 736 | 5,333 | 74.3% |
| #24 | HES-SO Valais-Wallis | Switzerland | 57.8 | 1,316 | 7,967 | 42.3% |
| #25 | International Institute for Management Development | Switzerland | 57.3 | 469 | 4,889 | 0.6% |
| #26 | Zurich University of Teacher Education | Switzerland | 57.2 | 2,493 | 11,803 | 75.7% |
| #27 | Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration | Switzerland | 55.7 | 1,294 | 7,679 | 10.6% |
| #28 | Business School Lausanne | Switzerland | 54.9 | 348 | 5,496 | 126.4% |
| #29 | Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training SFUVET | Switzerland | 54.4 | 526 | 3,742 | 67.7% |
| #30 | Swiss School of Public Health | Switzerland | 54.2 | 839 | 3,388 | 227.6% |
| #31 | Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts | Switzerland | 54.0 | 5,512 | 10,604 | 72.7% |
| #32 | EU Business School, Geneva | Switzerland | 52.7 | 1,863 | 4,646 | 88.7% |
| #33 | Kantonsschule Olten | Switzerland | 52.2 | 290 | 3,436 | 21.2% |
| #34 | Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences | Switzerland | 51.8 | 399 | 3,412 | 40.8% |
| #35 | Victoria School of Management | Switzerland | 51.1 | 1,613 | 3,330 | 23.5% |
| #36 | HES-SO Fribourg | Switzerland | 50.1 | 664 | 2,793 | 55.0% |
| #37 | University of Teacher Education Lucerne | Switzerland | 49.9 | 986 | 2,697 | 91.5% |
| #38 | Pädagogische Hochschule Bern | Switzerland | 48.0 | 628 | 2,817 | 2.9% |
| #39 | Haute École Pédagogique du Canton de Vaud | Switzerland | 46.1 | 900 | 2,264 | 20.6% |
| #40 | Zurich University of the Arts | Switzerland | 45.9 | 792 | 2,264 | 19.4% |
| #41 | Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences | Switzerland | 44.8 | 194 | 2,152 | 83.6% |
| #42 | School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg | Switzerland | 44.4 | 278 | 1,494 | 33.3% |
| #43 | International Baccalaureate | Switzerland | 44.0 | 228 | 931 | 98.4% |
| #44 | UniDistance Suisse | Switzerland | 43.7 | 247 | 1,211 | 30.1% |
| #45 | Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel | Switzerland | 43.5 | 134 | 876 | 125.7% |
| #46 | University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons | Switzerland | 43.4 | 484 | 1,330 | 14.9% |
| #47 | University of Teacher Education Zug | Switzerland | 42.4 | 297 | 940 | 88.5% |
| #48 | International University in Geneva | Switzerland | 42.3 | 196 | 568 | 218.0% |
| #49 | St.Gallen University of Teacher Education | Switzerland | 42.2 | 292 | 1,147 | 84.7% |
| #50 | University of Teacher Education in Special Needs | Switzerland | 42.0 | 440 | 757 | 114.4% |
| #51 | Thurgau University of Teacher Education | Switzerland | 41.9 | 177 | 865 | 41.9% |
| #52 | Schwyz University of Teacher Education | Switzerland | 40.4 | 256 | 1,194 | -3.9% |
| #53 | HES-SO Arc | Switzerland | 39.7 | 232 | 705 | 21.5% |
| #54 | Franklin University Switzerland | Switzerland | 38.1 | 107 | 504 | 50.0% |
| #55 | Webster University Geneva | Switzerland | 37.9 | 133 | 964 | -46.8% |
| #56 | Swiss Hotel Management School | Switzerland | 37.5 | 139 | 377 | 414.3% |
| #57 | Kantonsschule Schaffhausen | Switzerland | 37.2 | 121 | 908 | -19.3% |
| #58 | Kantonsschule Enge | Switzerland | 35.7 | 172 | 294 | -25.5% |
| #59 | Haute École Pédagogique Fribourg | Switzerland | 35.4 | 221 | 413 | -12.6% |
| #60 | Pädagogische Hochschule Wallis | Switzerland | 31.4 | 122 | 167 | 41.5% |
| #61 | Pädagogische Hochschule FHNW | Switzerland | 30.5 | 220 | 259 | -61.9% |
| #62 | Museum of Fine Arts Bern | Switzerland | 28.6 | 238 | 58 | -36.2% |
Research fields where Switzerland universities rank
Number of Switzerland universities in the top 100 of each ITS research-field ranking.
How ITS Research Score v3 is constructed
One formula applies to every index-ready institution, using the five most recent complete calendar years: 25% research output, 25% citations, 20% h-index and 5% i10-index (log-normalized so the largest universities do not dominate linearly), 15% citation impact (the institution’s percentile on citations per work, reduced below 500 works so small samples cannot win by chance), 5% publication growth and 5% international-collaboration share. When collaboration data is not yet available, the other weights are rescaled.
Data-quality controls: the unfinished current year is never counted, and a year in which recorded output jumps to more than three times the institution’s usual level while being at least 90% open access is treated as a bulk dataset or repository deposit and scored at the usual level. An affiliation check also removes institutions whose papers mostly do not name them in the author address (OpenAlex sometimes assigns a large university’s papers to a namesake school or college). Raw data are kept and every adjustment is logged. Open-access share and topic diversity are published as separate rankings and do not affect the main score. Citation impact is not field-normalized.
These indicators assess research activity only. They do not measure teaching quality, student experience, employability, reputation, finances or accreditation. Missing data are left missing rather than fabricated.