The Times Higher Education World University Rankings' Social Sciences table judges world class universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The ranking of the world's top 50 universities for social sciences employs 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.

Top 50 social sciences universities

Rank Institution Location Overall score
1 Harvard University United States
94.6
2 Princeton University United States
92.9
3 Stanford University United States
92.4
4 Yale University United States
92.0
4 University of Michigan United States
92.0
6 University of Chicago United States
91.5
7 University of Oxford United Kingdom
90.8
8 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
88.2
9 University of California, Los Angeles United States
87.7
10 University of California, Berkeley United States
86.9
11 University of Pennsylvania United States
85.9
12 Columbia University United States
84.7
13 London School of Economics and Political Science United Kingdom
83.4
14 University College London United Kingdom
83.1
15 University of Toronto Canada
81.7
16 Northwestern University United States
81.2
17 University of British Columbia Canada
79.4
18 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States
77.3
19 Cornell University United States
76.1
21 Duke University United States
73.6
22 Australian National University Australia
72.7
23 McGill University Canada
72.4
24 University of Melbourne Australia
71.2
25 University of Washington United States
71.1
26 New York University United States
70.4
27 The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
70.3
28 Carnegie Mellon University United States
69.0
29 University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign United States
68.4
30 University of Minnesota United States
67.2
31 King's College London United Kingdom
65.7
32 University of California, San Diego United States
65.5
33 Ohio State University United States
65.3
34 Vanderbilt University United States
64.3
35 University of York United Kingdom
64.2
36 University of Maryland, College Park United States
63.6
37 Washington University in St Louis United States
63.1
38 University of Sydney Australia
62.6
39 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom
62.2
40 University of Virginia United States
61.5
41 University of California, Santa Barbara United States
61.4
42 University of Cape Town South Africa
61.3
43 Emory University United States
61.2
44 University of California, Irvine United States
60.9
45 Dartmouth College United States
60.5
46 Brown University United States
60.4
47 École Normale Supérieure France
60.3
47 University of Arizona United States
60.3
49 Durham University United Kingdom
60.2
50 University of Bristol United Kingdom
60.0

Harvard vaunts its wealth and Nobel virtues

21 October 2010

It should come as no surprise that Harvard University — with its flagship Business School and world-famous John F. Kennedy School of Government — tops the social sciences table.

This broad subject category covers student favourites such as business and economics, as well geography, education, criminology and international relations.

The US takes eight of the top 10 places, with only the UK's ancient institutions, the universities of Oxford (seventh) and Cambridge (eighth), impinging on the American dominance.

Stanford University, in third place, doubtless benefits from having three Nobel laureates among its business faculty. Myron S. Scholes, William F. Sharpe and A. Michael Spence have all won the accolade in economic science.

The social sciences table is made up almost exclusively of English-language institutions from the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Even the University of Hong Kong, the only Asian institution to appear in the top 50, teaches in English.