Methodological notes

In order to achieve a proper, comparative appraisal of the period under review, all significant stays undertaken by Humboldtians are incorporated in the Humboldt Rankings, including stays undertaken by an individual Humboldtian at several different host institutions. Further stays in the context of alumni sponsorship are also taken into account.

However, guest researchers are only counted once per host institution, unless they have chosen different institutions, in which case they feature in the statistics several times. All stays lasting one month or longer are included, whereby the statistics relevant for the rankings only refer to stays in connection with a research fellowship or a research award. Stays in the context of programmes which focus on conducting a project (German Chancellor Fellowship Programme, International Climate Protection Fellowship Programme) or partnerships are not taken into account.

With reference to the tables for universities:

The results of the weighting in the final column of the tables (if a weighting was possible) show the number of guest researchers per 100 professors and are based on the figures provided by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany for the number of W3/C4 professors at the respective universities in 2010.

Only universities with at least five W3/C4 professors were included in the weighting. As, in some cases, the personal data provided by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany for certain academic areas at specific universities had been blackened out for reasons of data protection, these could not be included in the weighting.

The absolute rankings are calculated on the basis of all institutions.

With reference to the tables for weighted non-university research institutions:

With reference to the four major science organisations (Leibniz Association, Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Max Planck Society) and the institutions hosting more than 10 guest researchers, the personal data was collected in the form of a survey conducted by the Humboldt Foundation itself. The umbrella organisations provided data on the W3/C4 equivalents as of 30.06.2011 (exceptions: Helmholtz Association: 31.12.2010; FZ Jülich: 31.12.2011; DAI and KIT: 09.03.2012; EMBL: 08.03.2012). Here, too, only institutions with a weighting factor were included (guest researchers per 100 C4/W3 professors or equivalents).

The absolute rankings are calculated on the basis of all institutions.

In general, it should be noted that the weighting factor refers to a certain key date in the year whilst the stays are calculated over a period of five years. In future, it would be recommendable to calculate the weighting factor for a five year period, too, for example by averaging the respective years.