Oxford and Cambridge have enhanced their reputations as being among the world’s most respected universities, in another display of the strength of Britain’s higher education sector.
An international survey of academics rated Cambridge as the world’s second best, and Oxford third, both up two places from last year. Harvard was ranked top.
London’s elite colleges also did well. Imperial College was placed 14th, down one place; University College climbed from 25th to 17th; the London School of Economics was 22nd, up two places; and King’s College rose from 43rd to 31st place.
Experts said it confirmed London’s position as the world’s top city for higher education, ahead of Paris, which has five universities — although Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris-Sorbonne, its best performing — were ranked between 71st and 80th place.
The US continued to dominate, with eight of the world’s ten most respected universities and 43 of the top 100, despite Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford being leapfrogged by Oxford and Cambridge.
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Britain had 12 universities in the top 100, compared with 10 in last year’s list, with further evidence that the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and Londonis pulling away from its counterparts at home.
The rankings, by the Times Higher Education magazine, carry weight because they are based on the views of academics and reflect the reputation of their research and potential attractiveness as an employer or research partner.
The findings draw on a survey of 9,794 academics from a range of disciplines, who were asked to nominate the 10 best universities in their field. The largest proportion were in the US (15.8 per cent), followed by China (10.6 per cent) and Japan (7.2 per cent). The respondents included 5.6 per cent from the UK.
The University of Edinburgh jumped from 46th to 29th place, followed by the University of Manchester, 50th.
The remaining British institutions listed in the top 100 — Durham, Warwick, Bristol and London Business School — trailed by some distance.
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Lomonosov Moscow State achieved its highest ever ranking, at 25th, and Saint Petersburg State, joined the top 100 for the first time.
The University of Tokyo held its position as the highest ranked Asian institution, down one place at 12th, but Japan’s second strongest, Kyoto University, slipped from 19th to 27th. position. It was overtaken by China’s Tsinghua University, at 26th, with Peking Universityrising to 32nd place.
Wendy Piatt, the director-general of the Russell Group of UK universities, said: “Other countries recognise that world-class universities are central to their success and reward their best universities with significant investment and the cutting of red tape. By comparison, the UK’s spending on higher education is already far behind that of other European nations, China and the US — our public expenditure of 0.9 per cent of GDP on higher education is on a par with Israel and Mexico.”
British universities in the top 100
2 Cambridge (4 last year)
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3 Oxford (5)
14 Imperial Coll, London (13)
17 University College, London (2)
22 London School of Economics (24)
29 Edinburgh (46)
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31 King’s College, London (43)
50 Manchester (51-60)
81-90 Durham, Warwick, Bristol, London Business School (—)
Source: www. thewur.com