Rankings: The 3 best universities in Estonia for 2024/2025
Tallinn: Raekoja plats by Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, modified
Estonia is a small nation of 1.3 million in Europe’s North-East; sharing borders with Latvia and Russia and a short boat ride away from Finland. Estonia has earned a reputation as a modern country that embraces technological and digital innovation.
Despite its size, Estonia claims solid places in international university rankings. The premier institution is the country’s oldest (with a history of around 500 years), the University of Tartu. Other top institutions include Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) and Tallinn University, both in the country’s capital.
| University | QS Ranking 2024 | THE Ranking 2024 | ARWU Ranking 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Tartu | 358 | 301 | 701 |
| Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) | 651 | 601 | – |
| Tallinn University | 1001 | 1001 | – |
The QS World University Rankings are among the most important, most-referenced rankings. The QS ranking relies heavily on its academic survey, asking thousands of academics worldwide about the reputation of universities.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (or the THE Rankings for short) compile a wide range of statistics. Equal weight is put on teaching quality, research excellence, and research impact through citations (meaning how often a university’s research is referenced elsewhere).
The Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (often just Shanghai Ranking, or ARWU) focuses on research output and quality, for example measured by the number of published and cited scientific papers and the number of staff or alumni winning the Nobel Prize or Fields Medal.
Estonia is the northernmost of the Baltic countries, and a small, proud nation of 1.3 million. Many of its universities offer English-taught study programmes in a vibrant, modern setting.
Read more about studying in Estonia
