The University of Copenhagen (UCPH) is now the third best university in continental Europe according to the 2014 Shanghai ranking, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
It jumped three places in the world rankings from 42nd to 39th to leapfrog French university University of Paris Sud. It now only sits behind the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (20th) and the Pierre and Marie Curie University (37th).
UCPH performed particularly well within the fields of natural, life, and agricultural sciences and mathematics, according to the ranking compilers who are all researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The rankings are drawn up according to six indicators, which include the number of alumni and staff who win Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of cited researchers and the amount of published articles.
A world record
Aarhus University also had a good year, jumping seven places from 74th to 81st, placing it 17th in Continental Europe, while the Technical University of Denmark made it into the world's top 150.
In total, there were seven Nordic universities in the top 100: three Swedish, two Danish and one each from Finland and Norway.
Harvard, meanwhile, has topped the rankings every year since they began in 2003. This year, 16 of the top 18 were filled by US universities. The top European university was Cambridge (5th) followed by UK stablemate Oxford in ninth place.
