American universities dominate the 2017 US News and World Report global rankings this year, claiming all five of the top spots, pushing the University of Oxford down to sixth place.
The publication’s third annual Best Global Universities rankings have placed Harvard University in the top spot, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.
University of California-Berkeley and California Institute of Technology complete the top five, with the University of Oxford, previously ranked fifth, dropping to sixth place.
“US universities do especially well in the Best Global Universities rankings because they place an enormous emphasis on academic research”
The University of Cambridge followed in 7th place, then came by Princeton University (8th), Columbia University (9th), and the University of California-Los Angeles (10th).
The rankings incorporate the top 1,000 world universities – up from 750 last year, with universities in the US accounting for 210 of the total.
China is the country with the second highest number of universities in the rankings, 87, with Peking University, ranking highest at 53rd.
The UK trails China with 68 universities in the top 1,000 globally.
“US universities do especially well in the Best Global Universities rankings because they place an enormous emphasis on academic research – a key factor in our methodology since these are indicators that can be compared globally,” said Robert Morse, chief data strategist at US News and World report.
This year’s edition also features 38 country specific rankings, up by six from last year, including Russia, Egypt and Poland. This edition also includes 22 subject rankings, including Chemistry, Geosciences and Space Science.
After Oxford and Cambridge University, Europe’s regional rankings were topped by London’s Imperial College, and University College London. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich claims fifth place.
Meanwhile in Asia, the University of Tokyo retains its top spot in the region, followed by the National University of Singapore and Peking University.
The University of Cape Town remains top of the African regional rankings, which were introduced for the first time last year, followed by the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Kwazulu Natal, also in South Africa.
The top three institutions in the New Zealand/Australia regional rankings remained unchanged from last year with the University of Melbourne leading, followed by the University of Sydney and the University of Queensland.
Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil ranked the highest in Latin America, followed by Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and Argentina’s University of Buenos Aires.
