Harvard again tops list of the world’s best universities; Asians doing well

Ranked second and third respectively are Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. All are from the United States (US), which takes nearly half of the spots on the 100-member list.

The World Reputation Rankings are created using the largest invitation-only academic opinion survey. This year, the survey was carried out between January and March with more than 10,000 responses from 133 countries.

While the top 10 places on the list belong to the US, the fourth and fifth institutes – Cambridge and Oxford – on the list hail from the United Kingdom..

Overall, the US has 43 institutions in the top 100. The UK, meanwhile, remains the second most-represented nation on the list with 10 universities.

Phil Baty, THE rankings editor, said that, “The clear lesson, in the sixth year of this annual list of the world’s most prestigious universities, is that we have a firmly entrenched elite group of six global university super brands. The six, two from the East Coast of the USA, two from the West Coast and two from the UK, have topped the list – standing head and shoulders above the rest of the pack — every year since we started back in 2011”.

The five other universities in the top 10 are: University of California, Berkeley; Princeton University; Yale University; Columbia University; and California Institute of Technology.

While Baty noted the solid strength of the super brands, he pointed out that THE World Reputation Rankings 2016 reflects that Asian institutes have also done well with 18 representatives in the 100-member list.

The best Asian performer is the University of Tokyo in 12th place.

China’s Tsinghua University and Peking University are placed 18th and 21st respectively.

The best performer in Southeast Asia is the National University of Singapore, ranked 26th. It has climbed up two ranks from the last survey.

Kyoto University of Japan sits on 27th spot just like last year.

Joshua Mok Ka-Ho, vice-president and chair professor of comparative policy at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, adds that Asia’s performance reflects heavy higher education investments from many governments in the continent and universities concentrating funding on strengthening their research capabilities and publishing in international journals.

Phil Baty added: “The rise of Asia has become something of a cliche in recent times – but our evidence, from six massive global surveys over six years, including the views of more than 80,000 scholars, proves that the balance of power in higher education and research, is slowly shifting from the West to the East.”