Harvard University has maintained its number one placing in the annual
Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings but British institutions dominated the peak group in this year's league table.

Cambridge University leapfrogged Yale University to take second place and British institutions were placed fourth (University College London) and fifth equal (Imperial College London and Oxford University), meaning the UK accounts for four of the top six institutions in the world. Last year only Cambridge and Oxford were in the top five with Imperial College sixth.

The eroding dominance of North American universities was reflected in the top 100 where their number dropped from 42 in 2008 to 36 this year, as more Asian and European institutions climbed into the league table. There were 39 European universities in the top 100 this year, up from 36 in 2008 and 16 Asian institutions, up from 14 last year.

In all, universities from 32 countries are represented among the top 200 (see www.topuniversities.com for full list).

The apparent dramatic change in the fortunes of US universities over just 12 months is undoubtedly more a reflection of methodology than a judgement on their quality. The THE-QS rankings differ from those of their main rival produced at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in relying heavily on academic peer review rather than on measurable criteria.

Given the absence of comparable and reliable data on the world's diverse university systems, critics of the Shanghai rankings point to its reliance on citations and awards such as Nobel laureates which gives the outcome a heavy research focus.

The Australian National University was again the highest ranked university from outside the US and UK. ANU was placed 17th on the table, one place lower than last year. It was followed by Canada's McGill University in 18th place with ETH Zurich the next highest non-US or UK institution at number 20. The highest placed Asian institution was the University of Tokyo at 22.

The top 50 institutions changed little. The newcomers were Tsinghua University in China and the University of Amsterdam - the highest ranked Dutch institution while Tsinghua was the highest-ranked mainland university although three Hong Kong institutions were above it. The University of Copenhagen, Peking University, New York University and Boston University dropped out of the top 50.

Nine universities rose into the top 100 this year. They were the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Adelaide in Australia, University College Dublin, Nagoya University, the University of Zurich, Freie Universitat Berlin, National Taiwan University, Tohoku University in Japan and the University of Leeds.

The rankings included a new classification system to differentiate between generalist universities and more focused, or specialist institutions, where Europe does well. The top specialist engineering university was École Normale Supérieure - Paris, and the top specialist social science university was the London School of Economics.

The University of Hong Kong was the highest ranked Chinese university at 24 and two other Hong Kong universities also made it into the top 50 - the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The 2009 Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking is due to be published early next month. Last year's rankings placed eight US universities in the top 10 along with two UK institutions while the highest placed university not in the US or the UK was Tokyo in the 19th spot.

The THE-QS rankings are based on the following categories:

* Academic peer review (9,386 academics participated this year).
* Employer review (3,281 employers responded this year).
* International faculty ratio.
* International student ratio.
* Student/faculty ratio.
* Citations per faculty.

The top 10 institutions were:

1 Harvard University
2 University of Cambridge
3 Yale University
4 University College London
5 Imperial College, London
6 University of Oxford
7 University of Chicago
8 Princeton University
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
10 California Institute of Technology

John.Gerritsen@uw-news.com

* John Gerritsen is editor of NZ Education Review.

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