The 16th edition of the QS World University Rankings, released this month by higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, revealed that Tel Aviv University has broken into the world’s top 20 universities for “Citations per Faculty,” which measures the impact of research produced by faculty members. Among the six Israeli universities represented in this year’s rankings, TAU also most improved its overall position from last year, rising 11 places to rank 219th out of 1,001 universities surveyed.

TAU also achieved the highest mark in Israel for “Employer Reputation,” ranking 235th globally in this indicator.

The rankings are produced by the global higher education consultancy QS Quacquarelli Symonds and provide assessments of the world’s top 1,000 universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was named the world’s leading institution of higher learning for the eighth consecutive year.

According to Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, “Israel is one of the world’s most innovative nations, and one of the most prolific for research output as measured by number of scientific papers per million citizens. It also boasts one of the highest ratios of scientists and technicians among the employed population, underlying its status as a world-class tech hub whose competitive edge is also attributable to the quality of research produced by its leading universities.

“Being home to one of the world’s top 100 universities for citations per faculty metric, which measures the productivity and impact of research faculty, is testament to this outstanding infrastructure.”

The universities were assessed according to feedback provided by 94,000 academics and 44,000 hiring managers; 11.8 million research papers; 100 million citations; and trends in the distribution of 23 million students and 2 million faculty.