Upasana Gupta - September 10, 2013
Top Universities in the World
U.S. Dominates the List with over 40 Institutions in the Top 100.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the second consecutive year is rated as the world's number one university according to the 2012–2013 Times Higher Education's World University Rankings. The 2013 rankings, show the U.S. dominating the list with over 40 institutions in the top 100.
Oxford and Stanford University both share the second position globally. Other U.S. universities making the top ten list include: Harvard (4th); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (5th); Princeton University (6th); University of California, Berkeley (9th), up from 10th last year. What's interesting is that there are five University of California campuses among the top 50 on the list. Others are: UCLA at 13th, UC Santa Barbara at 35th, UC San Diego at 38th and UC Davis at 44th. On the 10th position is University of Chicago.(Also, view our listing of international schools and colleges.)
With ten universities in the top 100, the UK has the second highest number of representatives after the U.S. In UK, the highest ranked institution is University of Oxford (2nd globally), ahead of University of Cambridge (7th), Imperial College London (8th), University College London (17th),The London School of Economics (LSE), Edinburgh university (32nd), and Manchester university (49th) among others.
In Canada, the highest ranked institution is University of Toronto (21st globally), ahead of the University of British Columbia (30th), McGill University (34th), and University of Montreal (84th).
The top five universities in Asia include: The University of Tokyo (27th), National University of Singapore (29th), The University of Hongkong (35th), Peking University in China (46th) and Pohang University of Science and Technology in the Republic of Korea (50th).
The Times Higher Education's World University Rankings are based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available. These 13 performance indicators are grouped into five areas:
1. Teaching: the learning environment (worth 30 per cent of the overall ranking score)
2. Research: volume, income and reputation (worth 30 per cent)
3. Citations: research influence (worth 30 per cent)
4. Industry income: innovation (worth 2.5 per cent)
5. International outlook: staff, students and research (worth 7.5 per cent).
Although the U.S. dominates the list of top universities in the world, Phil Baty, the editor of Times Higher Education in a press release clearly notes that in the three years that the World Reputation Rankings have been running, spending cuts in U.S. educational institutions is making it hard for U.S. based universities to compete in global markets, especially in East Asian regions where institutions are growing as a result of strong government funds and thriving economy. "This is bad news for US competitiveness," he says.
The full methodology for the rankings along with the individual scores by university can be found on the Times Higher Education site.