The UK is home to the top two institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the first time in the 14-year history of the table.
The University of Oxford has held on to the number one spot for the second year in a row, while the University of Cambridge has jumped from fourth to second place.
Cambridge’s rise comes at the expense of the California Institute of Technology, which was number one between 2012 and 2016, number two last year, and now shares the third position with Stanford.
One reason for the movement is that Cambridge’s research income and research quality improved this year, while Caltech and Stanford were hurt by drops to their PhD-to-bachelor’s ratios. Caltech also received a much more modest rise in its research income per academic staff member compared with the other three institutions.
The US universities’ institutional income also dropped by 23 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, while Cambridge and Oxford each received a boost in revenue (by 11 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively).
Kenya universities
The University of Nairobi has moved one position up to be ranked the 11th best university in Africa
The study assessed five metrics to rank them — teaching, research, citations, international outlook and knowledge transfer.“Kenya has one university in the overall rankings,” the study says.
“Kenya has one university in the overall rankings,” the study says.
Globally, the Nairobi varsity is ranked at number 801-1000, a band used to categorise universities with close results, behind Makerere (401-500) while Cape Town comes in at 171.
“We used the bands in the rankings since the results for several universities were too close to call,” Laura Barnes, an official, responded when we asked for the exact positions.