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September 5, 2017

Oxford and Cambridge top Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018

Photo: Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world, founded 1586. Image Credit: David Nicholls.

Photo: Mark Williams, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, gestures during the WorkStudio ‘Experiencing Mindful Leadership’ at the Annual Meeting 2013 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2013. Image provided by & copyright © World Economic Forum. Photographer: Urs Jaudas.

Photo: Molly Crockett, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Image provided by & copyright © World Economic Forum. Photographer: Sikarin Thanachaiary.

The 2018 World University Rankings launched today at the ongoing THE World Academic Summit in London feature 1,000 institutions for the first time. The rankings feature institutions from 77 different countries.

• The University of Oxford has held on to the number one spot for the second year in a row, while the University of Cambridge has jumped from fourth to second place.

Cambridge’s rise comes at the expense of the California Institute of Technology, which was number one between 2012 and 2016, number two last year, and now shares third position with Stanford.

Louise Richardson, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, said that she was “delighted that Oxford has held its position at the top of these global rankings”.

“To be judged the best university in the world for the second successive year, against a backdrop in which Britain’s role in the world is uncertain and the place of universities in society open to question, will be a great source of pride for everyone at Oxford,” said Professor Richardson.

“Success in our field is never an accident,” she added, stating that it is “achieved by a relentless pursuit of excellence, creative brilliance and a deep commitment to our enduring values”.

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Cambridge’s vice-chancellor, said that the result confirms that the university “is among a small group of the most respected higher education institutions globally”.

Peking University has risen two places to joint 27th, which puts it on a par with New York University and the University of Edinburgh. While Tsinghua University has climbed five places to 30th, overtaking the University of Melbourne, Georgia Institute of Technology, LMU Munich and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Both those Chinese institutions have improved in terms of their reputations for teaching and research this year.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018: Top 30

Rank — Institution — Country

1. University of Oxford — United Kingdom
2. University of Cambridge — United Kingdom
3. California Institute of Technology — United States
4. Stanford University — United States
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology — United States
6. Harvard University — United States
7. Princeton University — United States
8. Imperial College London — United Kingdom
9. University of Chicago — United States
10. ETH Zurich — Switzerland
11. University of Pennsylvania — United States
12. Yale University — United States
13. Johns Hopkins University — United States
14. Columbia University — United States
15. University of California, Los Angeles — United States
16. University College London — United Kingdom
17. Duke University — United States
18. University of California, Berkeley — United States
19. Cornell University — United States
20. Northwestern University — United States
21. University of Michigan — United States
22. National University of Singapore — Singapore
23. University of Toronto — Canada
24. Carnegie Mellon University — United States
25. London School of Economics and Political Science — United Kingdom
26. University of Washington — United States
27. University of Edinburgh — United Kingdom
28. New York University — United States
29. Peking University — China
30. Tsinghua University — China

Indian institutes continued to perform poorly with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore sliding in the rankings. Though IISc remained the top university in India, it was placed in the 251-300 groupings of the best universities, a fall from the 201-250 cohort of the previous edition of the ranking.

“It is disappointing that India has declined in the THE World University Rankings amid increasing global competition. As leading universities in other Asian territories such as China, Hong Kong and Singapore are consistently rising up the rankings, in part thanks to high and sustained levels of funding, India’s flagship the Indian Institute of Science moves further away from the elite top 200,” said Phil Baty, editorial director of global rankings of THE.

Indian universities performed poorly on internationalization, which measures how successful a school is in attracting foreign students and staff, a traditional shortcoming of the Indian institutions. “Government policy strictly limits the number of students from abroad who can study in India and prevents international scholars from being hired into long-term faculty positions. The rankings may improve in the near future as Indian schools go about improving the internationalization aspect,” THE said.

INDIA — Top 20

THE Rank — Institution

• 251-300 Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore
• 351-400 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
• 501-600 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
• 501-600 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
• 501-600 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
• 501-600 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
• 601-800 Aligarh Muslim University
• 601-800 Banaras Hindu University
• 601-800 University of Delhi
• 601-800 Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
• 601-800 Indian Institute of Technology Madras
• 601-800 Indian School of Mines
• 601-800 Jadavpur University
• 601-800 National Institute of Technology Rourkela
• 601-800 Panjab University Chandigarh
• 601-800 Savitribai Phule Pune University
• 601-800 Tezpur University
• 801-1000 Amrita University
• 801-1000 Andhra University
• 801-1000 Annamalai University

According to Times Higher Education, “Tens of millions of students and their families, as well as academics and university leaders, view the results. The rankings not only inform students’ choice of university and academics’ career decisions, but they also shape institutional strategy and national government higher education policies in many countries.”

“We cannot develop the rankings and analyses we do without institutions signing up to our data collection system and investing the time and resources to share data in accordance with THE’s unique global data definitions. So we thank all institutions that engaged with the process this year for their commitment and support for our exciting global project. We are confident that the payback, through all the insights brought about by the rankings and the related analyses and benchmarking tools, is clear to all of our university partners,” THE said.

“Times Higher Education World University Rankings are the only global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. We use 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments. The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research (volume, income and reputation); Citations (research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and Industry income (knowledge transfer),” THE explained.

|GlobalGiants.Com|

Edited & Posted by the Editor | 1:01 PM | Link to this Post

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