Universities fall down rankings

league: Drop down the list not linked to impact of Brexit, believes researcher

UK universities are slipping further down an international league table.

A total of 76 UK institutions are included in the QS World University Rankings 2018, with 51 dropping down the list.

The falls are more likely to be related to a squeeze on university resources, and increasing competition from other parts of the world, rather than the impact of Brexit, it was suggested.

The table, which includes 959 institutions worldwide, does show that the UK is still home to four of the world’s 10 best universities.

Cambridge University is the top-rated UK university, taking fifth place, compared with fourth last year.

Oxford is in sixth place, the same spot it occupied last year, while University College London (UCL) is seventh, the same as last year, and Imperial College London is eighth, up from ninth a year ago.

Topping the table again this year is Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, followed by three other US institutions – Stanford, second; Harvard, third; and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in fourth.

Overall, 11 of the 16 Russell Group universities, considered among the best in the country, have moved downwards.

The rankings assess university performance in four areas – research, teaching, employability and internationalisation.

Ben Sowter, head of research at QS, said: “Though the temptation may be to attribute the UK’s second year of struggle to Brexit, we would warn against doing so. Much of the data we collect for these tables has been collected over a five-year period, and the first year of post-Brexit internationalisation scores suggests that there has, thus far, been a minimal impact on international student and faculty rates at UK institutions.”

Students from St Andrews University which is 92nd in the rankings.