After graduating from high school, many students aspire to pursue engineering. They aim to enter the best engineering universities in Europe because they are renowned worldwide for offering exceptional engineering programs.
In scientific and technological innovation, European engineering education is unrivaled. Many of these universities emphasize a rich theoretical background accompanied by practical hands-on experience. These schools offer limitless options for applicants in which specialized colleges offer specific disciplines of engineering. Graduates of the best engineering universities in Europe are well-equipped to take on challenges in the world market.
Aspiring to take on an engineering degree from the best engineering universities in Europe? Check out our guide on the top engineering schools that will help you achieve your goals.
Choosing Among the Top Engineering Schools
What to do:
- Get the scoop from current students. It is vital to know these things because the best engineering schools in Europe are unique in their strengths and weaknesses; knowing these will help you gauge your ability to adapt and thrive.
- Research more than its reputation. Other important factors to look for include the faculty roster, research facilities, as well as the campus services available.
- Consider college rankings wisely. These rankings of colleges may be customarily used to gain a relative view of diverse schools, but should not be used as an ultimate deciding factor.
- Examine retention and graduation rates. A high rate is a pointer to the existence of a supportive and effective academic environment.
- Show interest early. Showing a school you’re interested impacts its admission prospects, as it shows your enthusiasm and commitment towards joining the institution.
- Assess program details and facilities. It’s not just about what country has the best technology, but also seeing whether they suit your goals or interests. Also, find out about the quality and availability of laboratories, workshops, and research centers.
- Explore internship and industry connections. Practical experience forms an integral part of engineering and tech courses in general.
- Review financial aspects. Knowing how much of a financial commitment you would have to make, allows you to have a solid plan.
- Visit campuses. You will get a feel of the atmosphere, culture, and facilities through a campus visit that will help in guiding your decision.
What are Some Factors to Consider?
- Accreditation: The best engineering universities in Europe adhere to standards set by organizations such as ABET and ENAEE.
- Research and Innovation: Collaboration with institutions like Horizon Europe enhances research opportunities.
- Mobility Programs: The top engineering schools in Europe provide programs like Erasmus+ to facilitate student exchanges, offering a cross-cultural educational environment.
How Does University Rankings Work?
The best engineering universities in Europe cater to a wide range of interests, from traditional fields like civil and mechanical engineering to emerging areas such as biotechnology and sustainable energy. Europe’s dedication to academic excellence and innovation is reflected in the strong framework and successful outcomes of its engineering universities’ programs.
For a quality review of the top engineering schools in Europe, consider both QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education Rankings; these include a myriad of factors, such as academic appeal, employer reputation, research output, and more.
The university rankings lists provide a relative view of institutions against diverse indicators of excellence and guide prospective students and researchers to those schools that are strong in their engineering programs. However, one needs to keep in mind the ranking methodologies to find the one that will fit one’s personal and academic priorities.
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings for Engineering and Technology features Europe’s leading institutions in the field:
- University of Cambridge – England
- ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Switzerland
- Imperial College London – England
This ranking system ranks universities based on research citations, as well as academic and employer reputation.
Times Higher Education Rankings
The Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings use distinct criteria, focusing on teaching environment, research environment, international outlook, and knowledge transfer.
These rankings highlight the various strengths of a university across its engineering disciplines. While some universities may appear in both THE and other rankings, their order may differ due to THE’s unique metrics.
The Best Engineering Universities in Europe
The University of Cambridge in the UK is one of the oldest and most respected universities in Europe, with a very strong international reputation for its courses in Engineering. It has great learning facilities, including libraries, museums, and collections. There are 92 Nobel Prize winners in this university; this comes with over 5,000 academic staff and approximately 19,000 students, of whom 6,625 are international, distributed over 31 colleges.
Some of the fields in which Cambridge leads in research range from arts and humanities, social sciences, clinical medicine, and technology, including physical and biological sciences. Its biggest faculty is engineering, with over 1,000 undergraduates and 600 students involved in research.
Cambridge engineers develop advanced lattice-structured materials; they also lead in the creation of multi-phase lattice materials. A machine vision system, able to “see” its position and environment, has been developed that utilizes metrics to classify different parts of a road environment. This is important research for self-driving cars and other robotics.
Imperial College London, is among those institutions globally known for offering high-end education and research in the fields of science, engineering, medicine, and management. It is host to 15,317 students, nearly 8,000 internationally, and with 3,722 it has a key presence of academic faculty. The Engineering department is one of the largest in all of Europe and takes care of around 6,000 students; its undergraduate program in Engineering presents several opportunities to study abroad, industrial placements, and specialize in Nuclear Engineering.
Scientists from one of the top engineering universities in Europe have now developed a technology breakthrough wherein a robotic hand can be controlled through arm movements and muscle vibrations. This technology hints toward the future of highly advanced prosthetics.
On the one hand, the PNT project has the goal of automated construction of nuclear installations through cost-effective sensing, and, on the other hand, it provides a unified software platform for asset and personnel tracking.
The electric-vehicle electrification work at the Imperial College research team, with its focus on looking toward the future and studying battery failures, involves developing predictive tools for optimized battery performance together with minimizing failure rates through innovative designs of thermal management systems.
ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology was founded in 1855, after which it has been very consistent among the top five in Europe and the top ten globally. Switzerland merits being regarded as one of the best countries to live in and is instituted on top of the card for academic excellence. Among the prominent alumni is Albert Einstein, and the graduates from ETH jointly have won 21 Nobel Prizes. The university is home to over 18,616 students from 110 countries; including 4,000 doctoral candidates. Internationally, two-thirds of the 2,471 faculty members and academic staff are from international backgrounds. The largest one of its 16 departments is the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, D-MAVT.
ETH Zurich provides a broad mechanical and process engineering undergraduate program with some specialized areas. Most undergraduate courses at this university are in German while most master’s and doctoral courses are offered in English.
Research at ETH Zurich resulted in such breakthroughs as the development of a flying machine with one moving part—the “Omnicopter”—which can realize omnidirectional flight. Be it high-pressure processes, robotics, automotive engineering, nuclear power, or wind energy, the university stands first in research.
The University of Oxford is one of the leading and most innovative engineering universities in Europe, detailing a global network with a very rich history traced way back in 1096. It also boasts among its alumni 26 Nobel Prize laureates and 26 British prime ministers.
It has 44 colleges and halls, hosts some 20,000 students from 140 countries, and 40% of its 6,200 academic staff come from abroad. Over 5,000 researchers and faculty members support students in their academic and research work. The university offers such a diverse student experience, which includes internships, opportunities for international study, and support for independent research abroad. One of the largest departments at Oxford is the Department of Engineering Science, which has about 160 graduating engineering students annually.
Oxford researchers take part in a project to overcome “hydrogen embrittlement,” which can weaken common metals like steel, zirconium, and titanium. Their work is on how to develop future metals with strength in the presence of hydrogen.
But a team of Oxford researchers has led an effort to develop another way in which it might learn how the materials used in nuclear fusion reactors may break apart under intense radiation—a process that, if better understood and controlled, may reduce the risk of catastrophic heat loss.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), is one of the top engineering schools in Europe. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings has rated it as the number one best international university in the years 2014 and 2015. EPFL is an institution of the Swiss federal government that focuses on physical sciences and engineering.
The university has 9,750 students and 1,643 faculty members from 130 different countries. It offers master’s programs in nuclear engineering, computational science and engineering, and financial engineering. EPFL has top-of-the-line research facilities: it has the CROCUS nuclear reactor, a Tokamak Fusion reactor, and a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer. Students are actively engaged in research across some 250 laboratories and other research groups on campus.
EPFL researchers have developed a “tribot” in the shape of a “T,” capable of moving like an inchworm, crawling, and jumping. This new device measures 2cm tall, weighs 4g, and is developing robotics.
The National Centre of Competence in Research for Materials Design was established in 2014 with an investment of £12.7M. It drives novel materials discovery through its research and teaching.
Technical University Munich is a research-oriented school whose notable alumnus includes Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the compression ignition engine. One of the renowned authors who contributed much to its fame as far as academic legacy is concerned is Gustav Niemann. Being in Munich, the city with the highest number of car companies per square mile in the world, TUM has excelled in automotive engineering as part of its mechanical engineering department.
Almost 36,000 enrolled students – thereby 5,000 are in Mechanical Engineering, and about 10% are of foreign background. TUM has 13 departments and 5,655 academic employees on its two main campuses in Garching and Freising-Weihenstephan.
TUM promotes international academic exchange through cooperation agreements with more than 170 partner universities worldwide. That is completed by more than 320 Erasmus partnerships and bilateral agreements for double degrees with more than 20 institutions.
Excellence in research at TUM ranges from pioneering innovations in brain-controlled flight simulations to leading developments of high-speed, multi-gear concepts for electrified automotive powertrains. These constitute key development points about noise emissions, efficiency, and load capacities for electric vehicle power units.
Delft University of Technology has a rich history of technical education with more than 170 years of experience, and as of 2014, a robust mechanical engineering tradition of over 150 years. Being one of the oldest and most reputed Polytechnic schools in Europe, Delft University of Technology has an entrepreneurial vibe and spirit from which nearly 70 startups are established annually by its alumni base.
Having a student population of about 21,500 and 1,573 academic staff, most of the Bachelor’s degree programs at TU Delft are taught in Dutch. TU Delft is one of the members of the IDEA League, a league of the top five engineering schools in Europe, and CESAER, which unites leading European schools of technology and engineering.
Groundbreaking research initiatives at TU Delft include the transformation of a zero-emission Hyundai IX35 FCEV into a mobile power station by developing and integrating a socket into the fuel cell car. Other important projects include Nuna, a race car powered by sunlight; Glare, a breakthrough metal-fiber laminate used in the fuselage of the Airbus A380; and Flame, a humanoid robot designed to walk on two legs.
Founded in 1425, KU Leuven is the largest and highest-ranked university in Belgium. The university has continually gained enormous recognition in Europe. In a nutshell, the institution is devoted to research excellence. From its establishment, it was one of the gainers in the Erasmus student exchange program; it prides itself on having as many as 300 international partners. Being a member of influential groups such as COIMBRA and the League of European Research Universities further pays heed to KU Leuven’s commitment to higher scholarship.
It has a dynamic academic community with 52,000 students and 2,360 faculty and staff. KU Leuven also spreads campuses of smaller proportions in 11 Belgian towns, including Brussels, Ghent, and Antwerp—all built with Dutch as the primary language for communicating.
Researchers at KU Leuven have now developed a new type of drone: VertiKUL2 combines the speed and range of an airplane with the vertical takeoff and landing capabilities of quadcopters.
The second area is the GEOTeCH technology concept, a drilling technology breakthrough developing dry auger methods. The METHOD improves safety by reducing equipment costs and environmental risks resulting from water handling and waste management complexities.
Based in Stockholm, KTH is the largest and leading institution for technical education in Sweden. Along with other great achievements, KTH has given many Nobel Prize winners.
This university has around 12,600 students and 1,472 faculty members enrolled at the main campus and four other campuses in Sweden. KTH’s academic specialties are directly linked to e-science, IT and mobile communication, transport research, and production engineering. Having been part of global networks like CLUSTER and Top Industrial Managers for Europe, KTH is always at the cutting edge of international collaboration and innovation in engineering education.
From an institution established for the training of engineers for the mining industry, RWTH Aachen has grown to become Germany’s largest and leading technical university. Mechanical engineering education is among the top areas of excellence at RWTH Aachen. One notable alumnus from its mechanical engineering faculty is Theodore von Kármán, who played a key role in modern aerodynamics.
With a total of 41,300 students, some of whom are from approximately 120 countries, RWTH Aachen hosts about 8,000 foreign students. What is more, the faculty of engineering itself in this university contains approximately 7,000 students and employs nearly 3,000 professors. Most courses are taught in German; however, some master programs are in terms of English Language.
RWTH Aachen is very active in the Erasmus program and participates in many different prestigious university networks, such as IDEA League, TU9, German Research Foundation DFG, TIME network, CESAER, and UNITECH. Among others, the first all-metal plane, the diesel soot filter, the first particle accelerator, and the first wind tunnel are some of the noteworthy innovations from RWTH Aachen. The next generation of railcars will be developed at the university in cooperation with Siemens Mobility.
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