Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 report is out. The US has seven universities in the top 10 with also – Harvard University, 4th, Princeton University, 6th, California Institute of Technology, 7th, University of California, Berkeley, 9th and Yale University in 10th. The country has 13 in the top 20 and 56 in the top 200 with 169 universities featured in the ranking – more than any other country.

The UK has three universities in the top 10 with the University of Oxford taking the top spot, for the eighth consecutive year, and the University of Cambridge is in 5th place and Imperial College London is 8th. The country has 104 universities ranked – the third highest – with 11 in the top 100 and 25 in the top 200.

China has two universities in the top 20, seven in the top 100 and 13 in the top 200. In the 2018 edition, six years ago, it had two top 100 universities. The number of Chinese institutions in the top 400 of the World University Rankings has doubled from 15 in 2021 to 30 this year. Tsinghua University is the best-performing Chinese institution coming 12th and the country has 86 universities ranked – the fifth highest.

While the US and UK lead the university rankings their positions and powers are waning with declining numbers of UK and US institutions in the top 200 – by four and three institutions, respectively, since 2021.

Asia is the most represented continent with 737 universities ranked, Europe is second with 664.   Singapore’s National University of Singapore is 19th, while the country’s other ranked university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is 32nd. Japan has the second most universities ranked with 119 and the University of Tokyo remains the country’s highest placed university in 29th position.

In Europe, outside the UK, Switzerland’s ETH Zurich is the highest-ranked institution in 11th place.

Germany has 49 universities ranked, with Technical University of Munich the highest placed institution in joint 30th. The country has eight universities in the top 100 and 21 in the top 200. The highest ranked university in Spain is University of Barcelona, which improved in the ranking this year moving up 30 places from 182nd to joint 152nd. There are four new European countries this year: Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Armenia.

Turkey’s highest-ranked universities are Koç University, Middle East Technical University and Sabancı University, which all moved up the ranking from last year to band 351-400.

In the 20th year of the ranking 1,904 universities – up from 1,799 last year – from 108 countries and regions are ranked. THE’s World University Rankings 2024 are the most comprehensive, rigorous and balanced global ranking assessing research-intensive universities across 18 performance indicators covering their core missions of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation.

Stanford University has taken second place, making it the US’s top ranked university, and in third place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

THE’s World University Rankings started with 200 universities and now has nearly 2,000 making it the most global and inclusive ranking in the world.

(Press Release from Times Higher Education World University Rankings: Excerpts)