A RECORD 6 BRITISH INSTITUTIONS MAKE THE TOP 20 WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
Following 12 months of British sporting triumphs, UK universities have registered another international success in the latest QS World University Rankings.
A record six British universities make the global top 20, with University of Cambridge (3), UCL (4), Imperial College London (5) and Oxford (6) making the top ten. University of Edinburgh (17) and King’s College London (19) both move up into the top 20.
David Willetts, Universities Minister, said: "Our universities are world class. This is fantastic news for the universities, their academics, and their students, who are some of the most employable in the world.”
Willets continues: "However we are not complacent, and know we must work hard to remain the best. Our reforms to undergraduate finance have put universities on a sustainable financial footing and sharpened incentives to deliver a world-class student experience.
We have protected research funding, encouraging universities to invest in cutting-edge research. And we are helping our universities make the most of the growing opportunities globally through our International Education strategy."
US tech research powerhouse MIT tops the rankings for the second successive year, while Harvard moves into second place ahead of University of Cambridge. The top Continental European institution is Switzerland’s ETH Zurich, in 12th.
Graduates from Oxford and Cambridge were rated as the world’s most employable by a global survey of 27,000 graduate employers, one of the six rankings criteria. London School of Economics and Politics (LSE) also makes the top five.
“Clearly the prestige of a UK degree is recognized by employers around the world, and the brand- name value of Oxbridge has so far survived any negative publicity following the tuition fee hikes and student protests,” says QS head of research Ben Sowter.
Yet commentators also warn that present levels of university funding may be insufficient to retain the UK’s privileged position indefinitely.
Of the 45 British universities that make the global top 400, 29 rank lower now than they did at the time of the 2007/8 financial crisis. 21 UK universities have dropped more than ten places since the recession, while just five rank more than ten places higher than in 2007.
While UK universities retain a strong reputation among the world’s academics and employers, the rankings suggest they are struggling to keep up with the US when it comes to producing cutting-edge research.
University of Cambridge is the only UK institution to make the global top 30 for research citations, while only UCL, Oxford and Imperial join it in the top 50.
In contrast, the US boasts 31 of the top 50 most-cited institutions, led by Caltech, Harvard and Stanford.
“The UK invests below the OECD average in higher education, so it is unrealistic to expect its universities to continue to punch above their weight indefinitely,” says John O’Leary, member of the QS Global Academic Advisory Board. “The current success of leading institutions shows how vital it is that the government matches the investments being made by other countries in order to maintain their world-class status.”
The full results of the QS World University Rankings 2013/2014 are available at
TopUniversities.com/ Rankings2013
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