NEW DELHI: The Times Higher Education (THE) has released the World University Rankings 2025 with The University of Oxford retaining the number one spot for the ninth year in a row, followed by MIT(US) & Harvard University.
In total, 2,092 universities across 115 countries or regions are represented in the ranking.
Results are calculated using 18 performance indicators underlying five metrics: research environment, teaching (the learning environment), research quality, industry, and international outlook.
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Oxfordโs reign is now the longest in the history of the league table, beating Harvardโs eight-year stint which ended in 2011.
The institutionโs performance has been bolstered by significant improvements in its income from industry and the number of patents that cite its research, as well as its teaching scores.
Compared with other institutions in the top five, Oxfordโs international outlook โ particularly its proportion of international students and international co-authorship โ makes it stand out.
Across the Atlantic, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is now the USโ highest-ranked university, in second place globally, its best-ever performance.
It replaces Stanford University, which has dropped from second to sixth, its lowest position since 2010, driven by declining scores for teaching, research environment and international outlook.
Harvard University has moved from fourth to third place, and Princeton University from sixth to fourth.
MIT and Princeton are proving to be dark horses, with the data revealing steady improvements in their positions over the past decade.
However, According to The Times Higher Education, The reputation of the US sector is also falling. In the past year alone, there has been a 4 percent drop in the countryโs share of votes for teaching and a 3 percent drop for research.
US institutions now take 36.3 percent of the share of votes for teaching and 38.1 percent for research, down from 44.2 and 46.5 percent respectively in 2015, with the biggest drop occurring in the past five years.
Meanwhile, universities based outside the US and UK have 51 percent of the vote share for teaching and 49 percent for research, up from 37 and 35 percent respectively a decade ago.
The key countries gaining in esteem are China, France, and Germany.
