UK boosts standing but Asian countries 'snap at our heels'

I'm very sceptical about these results. After all, the top is dominated by English speaking countries and the tables seem to be based mainly through people's perceptions, therefore, the best known universities in the world are at the top. I'm sure if fresh graduates from all the universities were given the same examination just after their studies and these tables were based on those results the table would look a lot different.

When the top 20 are all English-speaking institutions, there has to be something wrong with your survey! You need to revise your criteria.

There is nothing wrong with the criteria, and the results are based on survey data. The best "examination" after graduating is employment. I would agree that the Anglo-Saxon dominance is to a large extent self-fulfilling, although not based on misperception: the best pupils want to go to the best unversities which therefore turn out the best graduates and are therefore voted as being the best by employers. Nothing in that chain is false. There is also the dominance of Engish as the global language, which gives both perceived and I am sorry to say in some cases real advantages to institutions in the UK and America.

I totally agree with the ranking.. i studied st UCL and i am very well aware of the quaility of education.

I suppose that this survey should actually consider employment percentual and the average employment rate of the country where employed (or region). On the other hand you'll want to consider also how many graduates there are in said country (or region) because higher education stands out in ignorance. I believe that also the pay is a significant parameter. Better universities will allow access to the most-payed jobs. Another good parameter is how many take the academic career (most of times it requires greater preparation than an average employment!). For example some courses at the university of Verona in Italy have a 100% employment rate. Is it the best university of the world? No, it's sure a good one but simply Italy doesn't produce enough people to cover all positions. Low education sucks (sorry for the term but in this case it is handy) and so you'll be able to get a job only if you have higher education. And not many do have it anyway (thus stipulating an assicuration on employment).

I would still prefer a Porsche, Mercedes or BMW even though Ford and GM may employ more graduates from top US universities than their German counterparts. And what about British or even Chinese cars? When looking at the top 50 for engineering the universities of the Porsche, Mercedes and BMW engineers are not present. This is quite amazing (By the way, I have used automotive engineering just as an example). Producing heaps of papers seems to be one thing - producing good products another. So what is the value of such rankings?

Although it is not easy to describe those 'Benthamites' and their world in a paragraph, hopefully my memories of Gower Street days will help: world-class researchers who dedicate themselves for conducting research across disciplines in dealing with global challenges; miltant lecturers who are keen to work with highly motivated students from various backgrounds (and become lifelong friends), and world-class resources and facilities which are strategically located in Bloomsbury, London's centre of academic excellence...

The top 20 are English speaking for two reasons, none to do with language. First, you need a long-established liberal democracy in which academic freedom can flourish (goodbye China - cranking the handle ISN'T enough for truly innovative research). Second, related to the first, you need a liberal University/classroom/laboratory environment where the boss CAN be wrong - Goodbye Germany! Simple.

Hi David, just a comment on your nice outdated stereotypes. May be you just don't know or may be you have watched too much history channel, but Adolph Hitler is long dead. Come to Berlin and check it out. Best Marcel

Of course, this table is a tilted one. Many results are in line with reality, but quite a number are not. One of the reasons is the verification (or better, its lack). 3 criteria out of 6 are about ratio of people (student/staff - international students - international staff). While usually good universities attract good (International) lecturing staff as well as international students, this does not necessarily always go in line. What is completely missing, is a consultation of the deviation within the individual components. If it is low, the table and the method reflect the reality. If it is high, a more detailed investigation is needed. Look at the tables: the overall is comprised of a weighted sum of the 6 sub-components, divided by the number of sub-components, ie. 6. Therefore, e.g. UCLA has a higher result for the academic criteria (298) than Cambridge (289), Imperial College (280); but figures on 32, due to its low enrollment of foreigners, lower student/staff ratio. So much lower, that it is ranked 32, compared to 2 (Cambridge) and 5 (Imperial College). Were I an alumni of UCLA, or a current employee, (and I'm neither) I'd tell THES to stick their screwed ranking where the sun doesn't do a specific thing. Obviously UK gains simply by being an attractive place for students from all over the globe, while the US loses (also after 9/11), and that results in ranks of UK universities higher than they actually are.

I do not see the problem with UK and US dominance, and from a nationalistic perspective is seems rather redundant given that almost if not more than half of postgraduate students at the likes of Cambridge are international anyway. I agree with Marco's comment wholeheartedly; there are lots of cultural, educational and financial imperatives which perpetuate their dominance of particular institutions, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Is this rainking calcurated by Wall Street ? Smells like those '+AAA' 'outperform' ....

Is this rainking calcurated by Wall Street ? Smells like those '+AAA' 'outperform' ....

cue press releases across the world - University of Poppleton confirmed as 130th best University in THE WORLD, up from 134th last year. followed by quote from VC. None of this actually has much use for prospective students as the measures do not include graduate success (the employer review is more related to how much Universities lobby their close employer contacts to vote for them, and how many in the same company you can get to vote for you as there is no limit), student satisfacton (staff student ratios are not an indication of course quality) or progression rates/student performance (impossible to compare accurately across the world). Shame that the Times Higher places so much store on them presumably to partly generate global income from ads to offset the falling sales from the UK Universities - who use cheaper means like social networking, internet and jobs.ac.uk to get their message across and advertise jobs. Best of luck to you all - from a University in the top 250.....hurrah! We CAN make the top 200 next year, c'mon!. It is also about size -the bigger you are is crucial, even though in the UK it is the smaller Unis with less than 15,000 students who often have the highest levels of student satisfaction and other positive measures, AND are strong for research.

:-D That is all.

I would like to make some observations. There has been much criticism of English speaking Universities' dominance in the global rankings. That criticism has essentially argued that the rankings exercise some bias in favor of English speaking universities, and are thus misleading. Most of that criticism has come from those who i'll wager are not either British or American. (Specifically, there has been much negativity from my fellow Germans.) Bias (on 'national grounds?') then, has perhaps been exercised by those both concocting the rankings, AND those criticizing them. Either way, no one has provided totally subjective views on the issue. Having said that, as far as I'm aware, these Global rankings are actually put together by a Chinese think tank, not an English speaking one?... Please correct me?........ Davis is a witty fellow.

happy that manchester in top 30 ..yey

(1) Regarding English...the overwhelming majority of journals (and thus publications) are in English...it is the linguag franca of science...therefore it makes sense that English speaking institutions have an edge...if Germany, France, Russia China, Korea, Singapore, and Japan started producing thousands of journals in their respective languages things might be different. (2) Regarding engineering mentioned above...as I understand it, NASA, Boeing, and GE have more engineers from a Spanish language institution within the US than any other single institution in the US...including MIT, Harvard, and Stanford...yet that institution is rarely...if ever...included in rankings...even engineering rankings...I doubt any of the readers (or yanks for that matter) even knew there were Spanish language universities in the US...but if you want a job at NASA, Boeing, or GE you've got a better chance if you go to this Spanish language school...for the curious it happens to be the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez.

Have similar rankings been done in other languages? If so, can someone please point us to them? This would help to address complaints of language bias. In bilingual Canada (French-English) we are sensitive to the question.

So we're supposed to believe that UCL is the fourth best university in the world? We're supposed to believe that UCL is better than Oxford? What a joke. UCL does not even deserve to be called a university (well, I suppose that technically it isn't one). UCL is much the worst institution of higher education with which I've been connected. Really, Oxford and Cambridge are the only proper universities in the UK. And however much first-rate research might be done in the best American universities you're not going to get the same university experience by going to an Ivy League school as you would going to Oxbridge. As a member of the University of Oxford I knew that I would be inheriting a share in more than nine hundred years of history; I knew that I would spend the best years of my life in the most beautiful city in the world. At Oxford I was taught by some of the finest minds of the age, not in a lecture theatre with hundreds of other students (though that did happen too), but on a one-to-one basis, making lifelong friendships with great scholars. But I learned much more even than I learned from these great men and women from the daily company of the brightest young people in the world, living twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in my Oxford college, lunching and dining (gowned) in hall, debating into the early hours in the wood-pannelled idyll of the Junior Common Room. Those were the greatest days of my life, rowing on the Isis at the break of day, hearing an evening Mass in the beautiful priory church of Blackfriars, and in between, passing happy hours in the frescoed reading rooms of Bodley. Here in London a framed photograph of the Oxford skyline sits before me every day on my desk and on the opposite wall there hangs a painting of my Oxford college. The worst decision I ever made in my life was to come down from Oxford and attempt to forge a new academic life here in London. After Oxford there is nothing. So I was warned before I went up: 'When you come down from Oxford you'll never really be able to enjoy life again', or words to that effect. That same person explained to me the peculiarity of English locution that wherever one is travelling from London is always said to be 'up', with the sole exception of Oxford, which is 'up' from London and 'up' from everywhere else, 'Because when you're at Oxford you're on top of the world' (those words I remember exactly).

'...that, wherever one is travelling from, London...' (For an Oxonian, I think one would hope for a better command of the language to come naturally, but there is the improved version, albeit late in time.)

What's the point of this list? Do you really think that a person going to #1 on this list is a better person than #200? The people I know who went to Harvard, #1, are all losers, basically coasters resting on their degree and connections they got because of their degree. The best example of that is a guy named Barrack Obama, who somehow got a very pretty important position without being qualified for it.

Jamal, Barack Obama went to Harvard (Law school).

Uniquely, assuming that Jamal is correct; Bush attended Yale, and Yale does appears in a lower ranking than Harvard. Knowing what we know about both Bush and Obama, one can without dought conclude that the ranking is correct. It does, however, make you think about the quality of education provided by any university that is able to produce a trained mind as that which Bush displayed. Now, we all know that from one specific case we can not derive a general conclusion, but in this instance the parallel is consistent. Ha, Ha

Richard, I think that was Jamal's point.

Alexander, I don't believe you're being objective in your views. You're approaching this table from an incredibly rigid perspective. The performance of a university is dynamic and ever changing. Oxford has such a lush history of being at the peak of academic excellence. But that's what it is, history. The people there now should not think that just because they have the name Oxford on their resume should mean that it should automatically carry more weight, they do have to prove that they can perform up to the standards of the legacy. They still have to be aware that other universities are rising up. I dont believe any single person can cast such a broad statement based on their own or even their collective colleagues experience. This ranking table was performed by those at "Times Higher Education." This is what they do and I have reason to believe that they placed UCL where it is for good reason. In actuality that reason is a very solid one because the score that places UCL above Oxford is the Citations per staff. This is a very reliable statistic considering that citations are recorded. My personal experience at UCL feels that this is justice, the professors I have met are incredibly motivated and dedicated people and it's good to see their work gaining the kudos it deserves. Slandering an entire university based on your sole experience is very unfair, especially considering that the position that UCL is in is due to the academic community believing that the job performed on Gower Street is an outstanding one. Oxford could very well overtake UCL again next year, but right now, UCL is just that bit stronger.

rasa masa, my impression was that he criticised Harvard, or rather the methodology, using Obama as an example of what one can achieve without a Harvard education. If on the other hand he was suggesting that Obama is unqualified, I would have to ask what qualification can someone take to become a president? A politics degree? Personally, I would have thought his law degree and time spent as a senator would have made him more qualified, though I suppose others disagree.

I am a current student at Imperial and I don't think UCL should be placed higher than Imperial and Oxford.

just one comment about the bad results of German universities. In 2008 significantly more European patents were granted to Germany than to UK, France, Italy, Spain combined. I guess the academic education there cannot be so poor after all. Especially the discrepancy with the UK is startling - if the UK has so many top-universities (also in engineering) why has Germany 7 times more patents granted than the UK in 2008 and by the way where is British engineering?

I absolutely agree with Israr Ardiansyah's comments.

How the hell can China be any challenge?! I teach here- my kids have no access to information for their Geo fieldwork or history research assignments because it's official state policy to withhold it. Websites are blocked, teachers (not simply teaching by rote) gaoled after being reported on by students and students themselves here in Peking protested for having to waste their time standing like idiots outside everyday practising how to kowtow to the regime for the Oct. 1 propaganda extravaganza, being told they would actually fail their courses if they did not submit. A former (Irish) student in Beida complained his classes consisted of taichi. Can anyone outside actually name a single Chinese university from a county of 1.4 billion??? www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

This league table doesn't necessarily give its quality of teaching in both undergraduate and postgraduate, as they have put a heavy weight on research. I was a student in UCL and i believed the university is amazing, academics are striving to do interesting research rather than playing politics. But to be fair that doesn't mean their teaching is superior than oxbridge or imperial. but anyway, i am proud of UCL is doing this well!

Any list that puts FIVE UK universities ahead of Stanford is absurd.

Seems like there may be an issue with smaller institutions with fewer researchers not making it in these lists due to less published research? I also agree with the comment of enjoyability and salaries, as these are two quite important areas for most students I would expect.

I am a current student at Imperial and therefore UCL is a bad university and it should be placed lower than Imperial and Oxford.

On a second thought, any list that puts any university ahead of Stanford is absurd. And yes, I do work at Stanford but this has nothing to do with it. Howdy!

Stanford as no 16?.... come on. Hard to imagine a more blatant British bias.

Berkeley is 39 way behind U. of Manchester!! Really?... 26 graduates from Berkeley have won the nobel prize. For manchester that number is 8. And for Imperial C. London its 4. COME ON!!

I think if we see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there or if someone were to get a big piece of the pie (#1), it would mean less for everybody else, we would then have a very difficult time sharing recognition and appreciation with others. we would also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of others. It's almost as if something is being taken from us when someone else receives special recognition or have a remarkable achievement. Why do we not share of recognition, of prestige, of happiness?

UCL has risen *thirty* places in four years. That sort of volatility does not mark of a stable metric. And isn't their VC on the board of the THES?

The score that places UCL above Oxford is indeed citations per staff. Which in fact just tells us that UCL have proportionally more staff working in fields where the typical output is journal papers; UCL's new "four grand themes" eshew many of the former fields. Nine biochemists and one historian will always beat nine historians and one biochemist by this metric.

Yeah, UCL's Grant is on their editorial board. Next year's what's the betting that the universities of East London (Hopkins); Winchester (Joy Carter) and Bedfordshire (Ebdon) make it to the world's top 10? They are all on the board.

Marcel, what utter nonsense. Writing from Germany at the moment AND spend a lot of time here. The entire structure of German academic science is hierarchical, including its funding opportunities and the lack of promotion. Germany spends much more on science but remains behind the UK in the highest quality output. Not acknowledging the problem IS the problem. Would you disagree that UK industry is rubbish because, unlike Germany industry, it doesnt invest in R&D for the future? No? There must be SOME reason why T.U.M., an excellent university that I know well, by the way, is only 55

What's this obsession with trying to put down anyone who came above your Uni? This is so embarassing! I say well done Cantab and UCL and Oxford and Imperial - there's obviously little to choose between these institutions or their American equivalents in the Ivy League.

Anyone notice how the Benelux seems to be the best region in continental europe to go study? There are more Dutch top ranking universities than German ones, and more Belgian then French. The reason for this, I believe is that, since the main language of these institutions is small (Dutch), nearly everything is published in English. Whereas in countries with a "bigger" language (france, germany, spain etc) more is published in the original language. I have often noticed that the english knowledge of Benelux and Scandinavian countries is much higher than that of other european countries, and this, coupled with a possible bias for english publications in these rankings might explain the high position of these countries.

I think this is all pompous crap...and yes most of my family have graduated from at least 4 of the universities mentioned...

The methodology used for ranking is still depends on subjective data and/or tick box exercise. As we know that the weakness of this method are open to personal interpretation. Also there is not any close scrutiny on what is reported by the higher institution is accurate or not. Let say an example, A higher institution reported that they got XXXXX million US$ research funding last year. How could we know that what is reported is accurate if it is not based on self report .... ????

I am amused to see some very emotional responses to the ranking published by THE this year. Although the ranking may not reflect all aspects of a university, it measures certain quality of the university. Most readers probably take with this view and would not consider it as an absolute guideline. Seeing certain irrational comments from an academics from a very prestigious university on fact that another university who happens to leapfrog his in the pool this year, I question myself what kind of education and training that the students would receive in his university. However, I trust the most of the academics in his university are fine researchers and dedicated lecturers, and same are many of the academics of the universities on the list and not on the list.

The major point re research excellence is that UK Universities, particularly outside Oxbridge manage to perform well without oodles of cash that Harvard etc has from fees and endowments. With care, and being used to a shoe-string budget, UK Universities may well hold their line.

Having been publicly berated by my better half for my earlier flippancy let me make a serious point. League tables in UK schools brought us "teaching to the test" and contributed heavily to the undisputed downgrading in academic standards at A Level. The RAE brought us unnecessary inter- and intra-departmental conflict even at very well-funded research intensive universities. Of course, those of us within the system know and respect our colleagues across institutional boundaries; we know that "a university" is a vast multi-dimensional thing that can't measured with a single number. We always have known this and we don't really care what these tables say. But how now to respond to the increasing pressure to jockey for position in them, now the culture of league-tables is growing in its pervasiveness---in the media, in the minds of our prospective students, and among the funding bodies? Especially if the tables can have egregious flaws? I suppose the best an individual can do is to appear to be a snob or a curmudgeon. But I'm worried. We ignore them at our peril.

My daughter chose UCL over Cambridge. She was more interested in her academic future being in the hands of an institution that was keen to have her rather than in one that wanted her to be keen to have them. An incredibly perceptive 18 year old!

How are these universities being evaluated exactly? The order of Canadian universities on the list is totally at odds with the rankings done annually by McLean's magazine, which listed the University of Waterloo as the #1 overall uni in 2008. It doesn't even appear on this list. The order of UK universities conflicts with The Times' own Good University Guide 2010 http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php There seems to be absolutely no logic at work here.

David, just to put things in perspective. I completed master degrees and PhD degrees both in the US and in Germany. I was Professor at the University of Michigan, the Humboldt University in Berlin and now am Professor at the University of Geneva. So I have some experience on which I can base my judgment. The key problem is not strict hierarchies, goose-step, "Achtung" and all these stereotypes - the key is that German universities are chronically underfinanced. The latest OECD report clearly confirms this statement - http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3633837,00.html - This results in unacceptable student/professor ratios. I had up to 600 students in bachelor classes and on average 80 students in my master classes. Just to carry the final bachelor exams to my office I needed two people to help me ... Even if you love teaching the mere number of students prevents you from creating the creative environment you talked about. This was a major reason for me to accept an offer from the University of Geneva. Here I have max. 200 students in bachelor and between 10 and 40 in master classes. Here I can do what I really enjoy doing: teaching, working intensively with students and doing research. World war II, history channel stereotypes are not the reason - its lack of funding - and yes the UK spends considerably more on higher education than Germany. Best Marcel

The peer response is probably heavily biased towards older, "Empire" academics in remote universities. This is the only way UK universities can do so well. Were an iterative procedure used whereby the weights were increased in successive rounds according to the rankings in the previous round, the dominance of US institutions would be clear.

I think that most people would agree that Germany has the pre-eminent reputation for engineering within the EU, if not the world. I also suspect that most of their engineering graduates are home grown. Therefore, I find it inconceivable that they don't have universities that reflect this status on THE list. By the way, I'm a Brit, so no axe to grind here. My failure to properly navigate and post on this site may undermine my comment, as does the post from Marcel who is better placed to judge than myself. :)

I have experience as a student and as a lecturer/professor at universities in north american, europe, australasia and asia. I have lectured classes of 150 students and classes with few than 10 students at the undergraduate level and classes even with 3 students, of course, at the postgraduate level. Although it sounds trivial, students from smaller classes do perform much better than students in large classes in understanding the lecture material, in raising questions, in rapport and in taking initiatives to make suggestions. They are also more willing to discuss with the lecturer on the course material and other matters. Well known universities do not always provide quality teaching accordingly because of large class sizes. I found frustration in lecturing large classes as I had to ignore students who were very bright or who had trouble to catch up but put my focus on the majority. Some of the very good students make their marks, more or less with their own efforts and intelligence (as what I saw in the classes that I lectured in one of my previous universities). Saying that big name universities produce good students because they are good is an oversimplification. Some big-name universities may not be the best option for undergraduate students, for undesirable lecturer to student ratios. Big names do attract students with high calibre, and they are also more capable to take care of themselves and tend to be more resourceful. I understand the importance of research in a university and that postgraduate students are benefit from supervision of active researchers, but I also see that undergraduate teaching should be considered as an important criterion to assess the quality of university. By the way the universities which I work at and previously worked at are research intensive universities, highly ranked both on the THE-QS and the SJTU list (aka "big names").

The list looks fine to me... And in any event it is not worth getting excited about. The reason why the US/UK universities dominate the top 100 is simply that they attract the best academics from around the world. At some point the direction of flow will change, but not until countries like china become more inviting to foreign scholars. Personally, I am impressed by the performance of Australian universities - well done Australia.

I believe that a better way of looking at these rankings, would be by sorting them using the criteria you think matters more. Berkely, for example scores a 100/100 in 3 out of the 6 criteria. It scored poorly (25) in Staff/student ratio and down it goes to number 39. International students didn't rate it highly but there's got to be something behind producing that many noble laureates. Other aspects to consider are things like how welcoming the universties are to international staff and students (those scores have a 33% share). The Indian IITs for example do not encourage too many international students and that might be a reason for them struggling to make it to top 100 in spite of attracting the best minds in that country. Their might be a similar situation in many countries outside the North America and Europe especially with English not as their first language.

As for the US-UK debate, the US universities have lost out merely because of the feedback by international staff and students. Although, the US remains the preferred choice for higher education in big Asian countries such as China and India, it is surprising why those who already went there didn't rate it highly. For the staff score, one of the more senior academicians involved in this discussion may better comment. I'm just a first year postgrad student at the University of Birmingham. Happy to go up 9 places from last year :-)

I am Asian, not American, British, nor German. If I need to chose a university, I would think that German, Japanese or French universities are better than Australian, Hongkong, or even British universities. Why? Because German and France produce best thinkers in social science. Who doesn't know Weber, Marx, Bourdieu, Foucault, etc.? France, German, and Japan also produce many high tech products, just look at French TGV, German's maglev, and Japanese shinkansen. Who are the social science thinkers that Australian, HK, or Malaysian universities ever produce? What kind of high tech products they ever produce? Even the UK, they don't produce such high quality cars as the German do, such a fast and modern train as the French do, and such good electronic gadgets as Japanese do...

@Hard to Believe: I find it hard to believe that you can believe such rubbish! Please, we are comparing universities here, not the car production or train services of countries around the world - such lists exist. I reiterate, the highly rated US and UK universities mentioned are so placed because they are international universities whose faculties consist of telented people from many nationalities who are drawn to these centers of excellence.

whippet, if they are so talented and the universities are so highly qualified, I wonder why they cannot produce graduates who can create such high-tech products and are able to produce such works that influence many people in the world. What the purpose of getting education if you cannot make anything? I wasn't talking about US universities which are also underrated in this list... I was talking about UK and commonwealth universities which are overrated. What are the Australian universities ever produce? Kylie Minogue? :)

To Hard to Believe: It is true that there are many great thinkers in the European continent and Japan has been great in making so many electronic gadgets. However, other part of the world, such as UK, Australia and UK, have their share in advancing human knowledge and welling being. Francis Bacon was English and Adam Smith was a Scot. Karl Marx wrote his masterpiece Das Kapital in London and spent much time in the British Library to study for economic master pieces (..... his research was facilitated by the Brits .....). The use of optical fiber for telecommunication (that makes internet broadband possible) was developed by Charles Kao (2009 Nobel Physics Laureate) when he was in UK, and later he was a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong till he retired. One of the digital devices inside your remote control that allows you to record of your TV programs from many channels was developed by a group of former physics professors of Chinese University of Hong Kong. Australia is a leader in the world in building high precision and high sensitive radio interferometry instruments that can probe very deep into the early universe. By the way USA do not produce consumer cars as Germany and Japan but no one doubts the industrial power of Americans --- they build high performance flying machines though. UK and Italy produce cutting edge technology for Formula 1 racing cars ...... I suppose the UK Aston Martin would probably still be competitive among cars produced by BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Toyota ....... Rolls-Royce still produces engines to fly the Airbus 380s and the new Boeing 787s ......

"What are the Australian universities ever produce? " To Hard to Believe: Two Nobel Laureates in medicine recently, and many excellent researchers and academic in various universities in North America, Europe, Australasia and Asia.

CKW, you were wrong. Of course the US produce consumer cars, what do you think about Ford, Chysler, Chevrolet, etc.? As for Aston Martin, please look around Germany, France, and Asian countries, can you find it? I don't want to underestimate the US, UK, or Australia, anyway, but placing Italian, German or French universities in such low ranks really doesn't do justice consider their achievement. I'd like also to remain you that David Smith learned a lot from the French during his travel there, where the French learned a lot from their German's counterparts. Before going to London, Marx spent a lot of time in Paris and got a lot of his ideas for Das Kapital from there. If you go to the US, you'll realize that Foucault, Derrida, and Bordieau, are widely cited until today. Who's Australian usually cited in social science? Mel Gibson?

To Hard to Believe: Being a Greek, and following your thoughts, I wonder why Greek Universities in Athens, were Aristotle, Socrates and Plato taught are so low in this ranking....Athens University is #177 in the list! What I'm saying is that, as one mentioned earlier, you have to consider universities as being dynamical structures which evolve over the years and don't rely on their history to stay on top of the rankings, but they need to work constantly on producing works of academic excellence, in order to do so. Finally, honestly I can't accept that one can really say that UCL is over Oxford (although I am currently a UCL postgrad) or that Stanford is below Oxford. These lists should only be considered as an indication of how good a university is, and all Top20 universities to be considered more or less equal in academic achievement.

To hard to believe: It was a typo missing. What I meant to say is: "By the way USA do not produce consumer cars as ** good quality as ** Germany and Japan ..." I said "Francis Bacon was English and Adam Smith was a Scot." Knowledge is shared across boundaries and it is natural that great thinkers were well read and knew much outside his/her countries. What I said was "UK, Australia and HK have shares in advancing human knowledge and well being." Australian is a young country. If you count the total number of Australians have ever lived throughout the human history in comparison with the Europeans have lived after the dark age, it is easy to understand social science is not well developed there. However, Australia has made its marks in many disciplinary areas, such as natural science, agriculture and telecommunication. A university is not judged by its performance solely in their research in natural science or social science, art and humanity or engineering, law or medicine .... It is unfair to put down universities in the European continent, but it is also unjust to discredit the universities in UK, Australia and HK. ...... China and India have produced many thinkers ....... but the performance of universities in China and India are still catching up. The thinkers produced in a place might not necessary be correlated to the academic performance of the universities there. I forget this: Mohandas Gandhi studied law in UK and practiced in South Africa. So, .... By the way Einstein is not well cited according to the ISI index ..... and Confucius does not received much citations in research journals either ......... hmmmmm ..... My point is: we cannot take a simplistic view and make rigid judgments based on that. Of course, everyone is entitled to choose his/her university in whatever country he/she wants to go, but there is no need to discredit the universities in UK, Australia and HK to justify one's decision and preference.

@Alexander: Bordieau, Foucault, Derrida aren't that old, they were graduates from French modern institutions. You cannot compare them to your oldies.. and how about 2007 nobel laureates? Why didn't I see their French and German universities on the list? See, unlike Plato, they are modern people living in our age. What's wrong with the University of Paris Sud that produce such a laureate? I just wonder why such great modern institutions who gave birth to many great thinkers ranked low than universities who never produce such people. You mentioned that top20 univ to be considered equal, but hey Berkeley is 30s..

@Hard to Believe : I can not really believe that you are as silly and ignorant as you are making out in your posts. Come on own up, you are just trying to generate a response with these very childish posts.

@whippet: just answer my question please...better than saying that other people are childish... Or another question: why couldn't I find the name of some universities that produce recent nobel laureates? Those institutions, in Germany and France, still produce nobel laureates (2007 in physics, 2007 in chemistry, 2008 in medicine)... while many universities who never produce such laureates are placed much higher...

CKW, do you agree if I say that winning nobel prize is a sign of the academic exellence of both people and his/her place of work? My question is similar to the ones for whippet: why couldn't I find the name of some universities that produce recent nobel laureates? Those institutions, in Germany and France, still produce nobel laureates until nowadays (2007 in physics, 2007 in chemistry, 2008 in medicine)... while many universities who never produce such laureates are placed much higher..

To Hard to Believe: This is my final response to your posts. Please do some research more properly. By the way, Martin Evans, PhD from UCL, Nobel Laureate in Medicine 2007; Charles Kao, PhD from ICL, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2009; .......

CKW, thanks, but you misintepreted my msg. I didn't questioning nobel laureate from UCL nor from HKU. I did ask why some universities in Germany and France which produce recent nobel laureates are placed much lower than universities which never do... you can see there that UM (Malaya) for example, is placed among top 200 while some much better universities that produce nobel laureates just given places much lower than that...

@Hard to Believe: Not really sure what your question is, but if we forget for the moment which country produces the best widgets. Forget also Nobel prizes, there are so few of them that even if a university has one or two they do not provide an accurate measure of the research strength of that university as a whole. One of the reasons that German universities are not doing as well as we might expect in the list is simply that there are now large numbers of talented German academics working abroad particulary in the UK and US. This loss of talent coupled with the reluctance of German universities to hire exceptional non-German talent leaves them at a disadvantage. The same argument can be made for many other countries for example Russia. Whereas Australia is very keen to attract the best academics they can regardless of nationality and this is enabling them to punch above their weight in the list for a population of only 20M. So you have got to look at the bigger picture....

Whippet is spot on. Australia performs exceptional well in research given a small population, and the international scholars make significant contribution to the Australian universities. My own experience working in Australia confirms this. There is a slight difference between the situation in Germany and Russia -- Germany has the financial power to hire non-German talents, but it may not be the case for Russia even if they want to, at least at the moment.

Didn't Einstein study at Uni of Westminster - School of thugs.

It was not until I studied abroad in the UK, at one of these top schools, that I realized how much the British cherish their rankings. How on earth can we quantify the differences between universities? A Harvard or Yale education, thoroughly American, thoroughly liberal arts-oriented, emphasizes quite different values from that of thoroughly English Oxbridge or the largely vocational Asian schools. If this article is meant to be a call to action to those unis outside of the "top 10" to step up their game and do more for their students, then so be it. But the way this is written, it all seems to be too much a game.

To CKW, The 2009 Nobel Laureat for Physics Charles Kao never studied at ICL but instead registered at UCL for a PhD under the supervision of Harold Barlow.

He studied at the Thames Poly, now Greencwich U. Polys were good and should never have become universities.

A range of comments!!