The highest-ranked university in the world is the UK’s University of Oxford, which has taken the top spot for an unprecedented eight consecutive years, in the largest edition of Times Higher Education’s (THE) World University Rankings.
In the 20th year of the ranking 1,904 universities – up from 1,799 last year – from 108 countries and regions are ranked. THE’s World University Rankings 2024 are the most comprehensive, rigorous and balanced global ranking assessing research-intensive universities across 18 performance indicators covering their core missions of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation.
Stanford University has taken second place, making it the US’s top ranked university, and in third place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
THE’s top 25 universities in the world
| Institution | Country/region | Rank 2024 | Rank 2023 |
| University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 1 | 1 |
| Stanford University | United States | 2 | =3 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 3 | 5 |
| Harvard University | United States | 4 | 2 |
| University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 5 | =3 |
| Princeton University | United States | 6 | 7 |
| California Institute of Technology | United States | 7 | 6 |
| Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 8 | 10 |
| University of California, Berkeley | United States | 9 | 8 |
| Yale University | United States | 10 | 9 |
| ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 11 | =11 |
| Tsinghua University | China | 12 | 16 |
| The University of Chicago | United States | 13 | 13 |
| Peking University | China | 14 | 17 |
| Johns Hopkins University | United States | 15 | 15 |
| University of Pennsylvania | United States | 16 | 14 |
| Columbia University | United States | 17 | =11 |
| University of California, Los Angeles | United States | 18 | 21 |
| National University of Singapore | Singapore | 19 | 19 |
| Cornell University | United States | 20 | 20 |
| University of Toronto | Canada | 21 | 18 |
| UCL | United Kingdom | 22 | 22 |
| University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | United States | 23 | 23 |
| Carnegie Mellon University | United States | 24 | 28 |
| University of Washington | United States | 25 | =26 |
* = is joint
(The top 100 universities in the ranking is available below, in ‘Notes to editors’)
If you reproduce any part of these ranking tables or charts please attribute it to “Times Higher Education World University Rankings”, and link to the full list on our website (live from 15:00 British Summer Time on 27 September 2023): https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/world-ranking
The US has seven universities in the top 10 with also – Harvard University, 4th, Princeton University, 6th, California Institute of Technology, 7th, University of California, Berkeley, 9th and Yale University in 10th. The country has 13 in the top 20 and 56 in the top 200 with 169 universities featured in the ranking – more than any other country.
The UK has three universities in the top 10 with the University of Oxford taking the top spot, for the eighth consecutive year, and the University of Cambridge is in 5th place and Imperial College London is 8th. The country has 104 universities ranked – the third highest – with 11 in the top 100 and 25 in the top 200.
China has two universities in the top 20, seven in the top 100 and 13 in the top 200. In the 2018 edition, six years ago, it had two top 100 universities. The number of Chinese institutions in the top 400 of the World University Rankings has doubled from 15 in 2021 to 30 this year. Tsinghua University is the best-performing Chinese institution coming 12th and the country has 86 universities ranked – the fifth highest.
While the US and UK lead the university rankings their positions and powers are waning with declining numbers of UK and US institutions in the top 200 – by four and three institutions, respectively, since 2021.
Asia is the most represented continent with 737 universities ranked, Europe is second with 664. Singapore’s National University of Singapore is 19th, while the country’s other ranked university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is 32nd. Japan has the second most universities ranked with 119 and the University of Tokyo remains the country’s highest placed university in 29th position.
In Europe, outside the UK, Switzerland’s ETH Zurich is the highest ranked institution in 11th place.
Germany has 49 universities ranked, with Technical University of Munich the highest placed institution in joint 30th. The country has eight universities in the top 100 and 21 in the top 200. The highest ranked university in Spain is University of Barcelona, which improved in the ranking this year moving up 30 places from 182nd to joint 152nd. There are four new European countries this year: Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Armenia.
Turkey’s highest ranked universities are Koç University, Middle East Technical University and Sabancı University, which all moved up the ranking from last year to band 351-400.
India has 91 universities in the ranking, more than ever before. The Indian Institute of Science is the country’s highest ranking institution sitting in the 201–250 band. Its northern neighbour, Pakistan, has 39 ranked universities with Quaid-i-Azam University the highest placed in band 401–500.
Middle East and North African nations are thriving led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel with all three countries with universities in the top 250. Egypt’s Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), which was not ranked last year comes in as the country’s highest ranked university in band 601–800.
Africa has seen participation increase by 16% year-on-year with rankings increasing from 97 to 113 institutions – this is the biggest increase of all continents. The highest-ranking university in Africa is University of Cape Town at 167th place.
The Latin America and Caribbean region sees a record 144 universities from 12 countries ranked. Colombia and Chile have a high number of new entrants, with six newly ranked universities for Colombia, five for Chile and two for Brazil. Colombia’s University of la Costa is the highest-ranked new joiner in Latin America, ranked in the 801-1,000 band.
Mexico’s two highest ranked universities, Monterrey Institute of Technology and National Autonomous University of Mexico both jumped up a band from 801–1,000 last year to 601–800 and from 1,001–1,200 last year to 801–1,000 respectively.
Brazil’s University of São Paulo remains the highest ranked institution in the region in the 201-250 band. The regional top three is completed by Brazil’s University of Campinas, 351-400, and Chile’s Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in the 401-500 band.
165 universities are ranked for the first time: 89 from Asia, 38 from Europe, 19 from Africa, 14 from South America and five from North America. At country level, there are: 20 newly ranked universities from India, 14 from Turkey, 11 from Pakistan nine from Algeria and Iran. Among these 165 universities, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) in South Korea has the best performance and is ranked in the 351-400 band.
This year 2,673 institutions submitted data, up six per cent on last year and 27 per cent up from two years ago, which is from 127 countries and territories. The remaining 769 institutions gained “reporter” status, which means, although they submitted data, they did not meet THE’s eligibility criteria to receive a ranking.
THE’s World University Rankings started with 200 universities and now has nearly 2,000 making it the most global and inclusive ranking in the world.
The US now accounts for only 9 per cent of institutions in the table; Asia has been the most-represented continent since the 2021 edition (overtaking Europe); and Africa and South America each have more than 100 universities represented.
Phil Baty, Times Higher Education’s Chief global affairs officer said:
“This is our biggest and most rigorous World University Rankings ever and the rankings’ 20th anniversary. Massive congratulations to the University of Oxford, and to all participating universities. Simply being included in the ranking is something to celebrate, as we focus on a few thousand research-active, globally-focussing universities among tens of thousands of higher education institutions worldwide.
“Times Higher Education provides the gold-standard for rankings, enabling universities, governments, those working in higher education and prospective students to make the most informed decisions based on rigorous and comprehensive data.”
Several updates have been made to World University Rankings 2024 methodology to include unprecedented levels of breadth, depth, detail and assessment of data making it the most rigorous and robust ranking of its kind in the world.
This year there are 18 calibrated performance indicators (up from 13 last year), which are grouped into five pillars: teaching, research quality, research environment, international outlook and industry. Four of the five new metrics include three that look at research quality and one that examines patents in the industry pillar.
Producing the global ranking is a mammoth data exercise, with input from an academic survey and bibliometrics on the tally of research papers and citations, as well as the data from institutions. For this year’s table, THE worked with more than 400,000 data values and has resolved more than 30,000 queries. THE’s bibliometric data supplier Elsevier has analysed 16.5 million research papers, which is 1 million more than last year. Additionally, 134 million citations have been examined, compared with last year’s 121 million.
View the full World University Rankings 2024 results (link live 15:00 British Summer Time, Wednesday 27 September) and see World University Rankings 2024 methodology.
3. Top 100 universities in THE’s World University Rankings 2024
| Institution | Country/Region | 2024 Rank |
| University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 1 |
| Stanford University | United States | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 3 |
| Harvard University | United States | 4 |
| University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 5 |
| Princeton University | United States | 6 |
| California Institute of Technology | United States | 7 |
| Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 8 |
| University of California, Berkeley | United States | 9 |
| Yale University | United States | 10 |
| ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 11 |
| Tsinghua University | China | 12 |
| The University of Chicago | United States | 13 |
| Peking University | China | 14 |
| Johns Hopkins University | United States | 15 |
| University of Pennsylvania | United States | 16 |
| Columbia University | United States | 17 |
| University of California, Los Angeles | United States | 18 |
| National University of Singapore | Singapore | 19 |
| Cornell University | United States | 20 |
| University of Toronto | Canada | 21 |
| UCL | United Kingdom | 22 |
| University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | United States | 23 |
| Carnegie Mellon University | United States | 24 |
| University of Washington | United States | 25 |
| Duke University | United States | 26 |
| New York University | United States | 27 |
| Northwestern University | United States | 28 |
| The University of Tokyo | Japan | 29 |
| University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom | =30 |
| Technical University of Munich | Germany | =30 |
| Nanyang Technological University, Singapore | Singapore | 32 |
| École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Switzerland | 33 |
| University of California, San Diego | United States | 34 |
| University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 35 |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | < |
