The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2024 have been released, and it is China, not the West, that makes the biggest impression.
advertisementThe University of Oxford remains at the top of the world’s best university league table for the eighth consecutive year, according to the newly released Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024.
Other Anglophone universities dominate the top 10, with familiar names Harvard (4th) and Cambridge (5th) continuing to dominate the list.
However, the top five positions have changed slightly, with Stanford University moving from the same 3rd place in 2023 to 2nd place in this year’s ranking, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) moving up from 5th place in 2023 to 3rd place.
This is primarily due to Harvard University dropping two places from second place in 2023, and Cambridge University dropping from a tie for third place to fifth place.
More broadly, the fortunes of US and UK universities have declined markedly this year, and European universities have also fallen further, while Asia’s stars continue to rise, particularly in China’s higher education centres.
Tsinghua University (12th) and Peking University (14th) jumped up the rankings, jumping ahead of universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University.
Continuing the trend of Asia’s increasing academic influence, Japan’s University of Tokyo has now moved up 10 places, ahead of the University of Edinburgh, King’s College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science. It was ranked 29th.
THE analysis of six years of data shows that the average ranking of U.S. universities has fallen from 296th in the 2019 rankings to 348th in the latest edition. The UK’s average ranking also fell, albeit to a lesser extent, from 451st to 477th.
Which universities in Europe are the best in the world?
European institutions continue to rank in the top 50 according to the overall score of THE rankings for 2024.
The biggest change was seen at École Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL), which jumped from 41st to 33rd place in the past year. The London School of Economics (LSE) fell the most, from 37th to 46th place, falling further from 27th place in 2022.
In general, most of the European institutions in the top 50 remained stable, either maintaining the same position or declining slightly.
Universities that did not improve their rankings included ETH Zurich (11th), Technical University of Munich (joint 30th, still the highest position in the ranking since 2011) and University College London (22nd).
In terms of the quality of research conducted at each institution (defined by THE as “citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research impact”), European universities far outperformed, with four schools in the top 10.
Vita Salute San Raffaele University in Milan was ranked 10th best university in the world for research in an overall ranking.
The school with the highest admissions rate in Europe was the University of Oxford (5) with a score of 99, followed by Imperial College London (8) and UCL (9) with scores of 98.6 and 9 respectively.
Other important points
Although China is still dominated by US and UK universities, it is slowly climbing up the THE rankings, with Chinese universities closer to breaking into the top 10 than ever before.
There are currently 13 Chinese universities in the top 200, an increase of seven from 2020. This year’s highest rankings went to Tsinghua University and Peking University, with both schools rising to 12th and 14th place, respectively, in the rankings.
advertisementThe rise of Chinese institutions mirrors the decline of universities in the US and UK, with the number of universities in the top 200 falling by three and four, respectively.
Professor Ming Chen, professor of higher education at Sheffield Institute of Education at Sheffield Hallam University, said the decline was due to a decline in the “relative power” of the UK and US, despite maintaining their lead over their Chinese rivals. He told THE
“Perhaps universities in both countries could consider learning about good practices in China and understanding different cultures and ideologies a little more,” he added.
“This trend also suggests that the power of the knowledge economy is shifting from the West to the East, which could encourage more international students to study in China in the future.”
