Oxford tops world universities as Cambridge slides to sixth

IT IS one of Britain’s oldest rivalries, pitching scholar against scholar and alumni against alumni, whether in the lab, lecture hall or on the water during the Boat Race.

And today it was the turn of Oxford University to crow a bit more loudly over its ancient rival Cambridge, after the world university rankings showed the gap between the two growing ever wider. While the University of Oxford has been ranked first in the Times Higher Education world rankings for the fifth year in a row, Cambridge has dropped from third place to sixth.

The THE’S experts say this is due to a fall in the number of Phds being awarded at Cambridge compared with undergraduate degrees and a fall in the amount of income from industry being generated by the university’s academic and research staff. Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at THE, told The Daily Telegraph: “The more research intensive a university is, the more Phds

you would see. While Cambridge also saw a decline in research income coming from industry, it did improve its overall research funding position, absorbing the drop in industry funding through other income sources.”

He added: “The teaching and research prowess of these institutions is jaw-dropping, and the competition at the top end of the ranking is extremely fierce. A tiny movement in the overall score is enough to cause a drop of multiple places.”

Imperial College London has fallen out of the top 10, while more than half of the British universities in the top 200 have dropped at least one place in the past 12 months. Overall, the UK has 29 universities in the top 200, up slightly from 28 last year.

The annual list rates more than 1,500 universities from 93 countries and regions in five areas: teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.

The rankings show Oxford – which has been making headlines recently with its work on a vaccine for Covid-19 – being once again named the best-performing university globally, ahead of Stanford University in America, which took second place. US universities dominated the top 10, claiming a record eight places.

In the top 50 alongside Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial this year are University College London (16th), the London School of Economics and Political Science (27th), Edinburgh University (30th), and King’s College London (35th).