According to Shanghai Ranking's "Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020" in the field of "Communication", our department maintains a top 15 position worldwide and is now ranked as the 14th best department in the world. Within Europe, our department is now ranked number 3 just behind the communication departments of the University of Amsterdam (ASCoR, ranked 1st globally) as well as the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (ranked 10th).

The Shanghai Ranking is strongly led by research indicators and based on the number of papers authored by an institution in a specific subject, significant award wins by staff members, number of citations, the percentage of internationally collaborated papers as well as the number of publications in highly-ranked, international peer-reviewed top journals.