“Let’s stop the self-denigration about the French university”

PFor the media and part of public opinion, the Shanghai ranking has two marvelous properties. It helps to explain once again that international rankings cannot really apply to France, which is too special for that. This is also true for the international program for monitoring student achievement: the assessment of school performance conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. And, at the same time, this classification considered irrelevant offers a golden opportunity to exercise our national sport, self-denigration.

During the last editions, in 2020 and 2021, we had to note the remarkable breakthrough of our best universities, in particular of Paris Saclay, the only non-Anglo-Saxon university to enter the top 20, in the middle of a cohort of American universities whose financial and logistical means are five to ten times higher (reported to the student). In 2022, divine surprise: our three national champions each lose a few places! At the same time, the press, almost unanimous, title on “the decline of our universities”.

Where is the retreat? In 2022, as in 2021, French universities are doing well, with the four Ile-de-France [Paris-Saclay, l’université Paris Sciences et lettres, Sorbonne Université et l’université Paris Cité], but also Aix-Marseille, Grenoble, Strasbourg, Montpellier, and others. The first three German universities (in Munich and Heidelberg), this close country where everything is fantastic, are in ranks 56, 57 and 70, very far behind the three best French ones. These are, with the University of Copenhagen, the only ones in the Europe of Twenty-Seven to appear in the top 50.

Very small deviations

Sylvie Retailleau, our new Minister for Higher Education and Research, did not shout croaking, but she noted, with common sense, a “stability”. In fact, when we look at the results underlying the ranking, we see that the gaps are actually very small. All users of this kind of rankings (there are many) know that, from one year to the next, small reversals are possible. There is very clearly a leading group, 100% English-speaking (Harvard, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford and Cambridge, Berkeley), and a second group, American, into which Paris-Saclay has slipped. Nice feat, actually. Let’s remember: in 2019, we had no university in the world’s top thirty. And, by the way, who pointed out that, in the classification by discipline, Paris-Saclay was world number one in mathematics?

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