The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 have been published. The first place is held by the University of Oxford, UK, for the sixth consecutive year. The California Institute for Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA, and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, share the second place.

As in last year’s ranking, the top 20 are mostly dominated by North American and UK universities. The top institution based in continental Europe is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, in 15th place, and the top Asian universities are Peking University and Tsinghua University, both China, which share the 16th place.

Top 20 Universities

 

Rank	Institution	Country	Score
1	University of Oxford	UK	95.7
2	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	USA	95.0
2	Harvard University	USA	95.0
4	Stanford University	USA	94.9
5	University of Cambridge	UK	94.6
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA	94.6
7	Princeton University	USA	93.6
8	University of California, Berkeley	USA	92.2
9	Yale University	USA	90.8
10	The University of Chicago	USA	89.8
11	Columbia University	USA	89.6
12	Imperial College London	UK	89.1
13	Johns Hopkins University	USA	88.4
13	University of Pennsylvania	USA	88.4
15	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich	Switzerland	88.2
16	Peking University	China	87.5
16	Tsinghua University	China	87.5
18	University of Toronto	Canada	87.2
18	University College London	UK	87.2
20	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	USA	86.7

 

Methodology

The Times Higher Education ranking uses 13 performance indicators, grouped into five areas:

• Teaching: the learning environment (30 % of the overall ranking score)
• Research: volume, income, and reputation (30 %)
• Citations: research influence (30 %)
• International outlook: staff, students, and research (7.5 %)
• Industry income: knowledge transfer (2.5 %)

Institutions provide and sign off their institutional data for use in the rankings. Bibliometric data is supplied by Elsevier. The perceived prestige of institutions in teaching and research is evaluated using an annual reputation survey. 

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Source

• Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022

Also of Interest

• CWTS Leiden University Ranking 2021,
  ChemistryViews 2021.
  Scientific performance of over 1200 universities assessed based on bibliometric indicators