Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies among Europe’s TOP 500 Universities in QS Europe Rankings 2026
The Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU) has been included in the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2026, ranking 496th in Europe and outperforming 48.3% of the 958 universities listed across 42 European countries. In the Northern Europe ranking, LBTU ranked 149th, reflecting its strengthening position both in the Northern European region and across the European higher education landscape. The result highlights LBTU’s sustained institutional development, strong research intensity, and growing international visibility.
In recent years, LBTU has maintained a stable position among Europe’s TOP 500 universities, demonstrating targeted progress in research, study quality, internationalisation, and sustainability. QS Europe Rankings characterises the University as a public institution with a specialised focus and very high research intensity. This profile enables LBTU to compete at the European level with larger universities while maintaining a focused and high-impact research environment.
Detailed QS indicators reflect LBTU’s key strengths. The university achieves its highest score in international mobility: outgoing exchange student activity reached 85.6 out of 100, indicating strong student engagement in international study and internship programmes. Graduate employability (38.4) and sustainability (37.5) are also highly rated, reflecting LBTU’s contribution to socially responsible and sustainable development, as well as a responsible approach to education and research. Research productivity, measured by publications per academic staff member (31.9), confirms the university’s active scientific output, while the incoming exchange student indicator (30.3) demonstrates LBTU’s attractiveness within the international academic community.
The University’s strong ranking performance is also evident in other criteria: LBTU is among the European leaders in academic reputation, employer reputation, and citation impact, as well as in graduate employability and publication output, underscoring the university’s positive impact both in Latvia and internationally.
Overall, QS Europe Rankings 2026 reflect LBTU’s consistent progress in research, study quality, and internationalisation, while confirming its growing role in the European higher education area. QS Rankings methodology evaluates institutions across multiple internationally comparable indicators, including academic reputation, employer reputation, research impact (citations per paper and papers per faculty), teaching environment (faculty/student ratio), global engagement and international research network, international faculty and student diversity, inbound and outbound exchange student ratios, and sustainability.
LBTU is one of Latvia’s leading multidisciplinary science universities, specialising in the sustainable use of natural resources. Research at the university and its affiliated research institutes is conducted in three main fields: life sciences, engineering sciences, and social sciences. The university’s higher education study programmes are closely linked to research and are structured progressively from bachelor’s and master’s levels to doctoral studies.
