The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 have been released. The ranking judges research-intensive universities based on metrics regarding teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. The first place is held by the University of Oxford, UK, for the ninth consecutive year, beating the previous record held by Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, which held the top spot for eight years in a row. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, has moved up to second place in this year’s ranking and is now the highest-ranked U.S. institution. Harvard University came in third this year.
The top 20 are mostly dominated by US and UK universities. The top institution based in continental Europe is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, in 11th place, and the top Asian university is Tsinghua University, China, in 12th place, followed by Peking University, China, in 13th place, and the National University of Singapore at rank 17.
20 Highest Ranked Institutions
|
|
|||
| Rank | Institution | Country | Score |
|
|
|||
| 1 | University of Oxford | UK | 98.5 |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | USA | 98.1 |
| 3 | Harvard University | USA | 97.7 |
| 4 | Princeton University | USA | 97.5 |
| 5 | University of Cambridge | UK | 97.4 |
|
|
|||
| 6 | Stanford University | USA | 97.2 |
| 7 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | USA | 96.3 |
| 8 | University of California, Berkeley | USA | 94.5 |
| 9 | Imperial College London | UK | 94.4 |
| 10 | Yale University | USA | 94.1 |
|
|
|||
| 11 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 93.0 |
| 12 | Tsinghua University | China | 92.5 |
| 13 | Peking University | China | 92.0 |
| 14 | The University of Chicago | USA | 90.9 |
| 14 | University of Pennsylvania | USA | 90.9 |
|
|
|||
| 16 | Johns Hopkins University | USA | 90.7 |
| 17 | National University of Singapore (NUS) | Singapore | 89.9 |
| 18 | Columbia University | USA | 89.8 |
| 18 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | USA | 89.8 |
| 20 | Cornell University | USA | 89.2 |
|
|
|||
Methodology
The Times Higher Education university ranking uses 18 performance indicators, grouped into five areas:
- Teaching (29.5 % of the overall score)
- Research environment (29 %)
- Research quality (30 %)
- International outlook (7.5 %)
- Industry (4 %)
Institutions provide and sign off their institutional data for use in the rankings. Bibliometric and patent data is supplied by Elsevier. The perceived reputation of institutions in teaching and research is evaluated using an annual survey.
