Oxford Remains World's Best University for 8 Years According to THE

Times Higher Education (THE) has released its *World University Rankings 2024*. The University of Oxford has again topped the list as the world's best university, marking at least eight consecutive years in the number one spot.

The UK-based university achieved a total score of 98.5 out of 100 points. This comprised: teaching (96.6 points); research environment (100 points); research quality (99 points); industry (98.7 points); and international outlook (97.5 points).

"Oxford has topped the ranking for eight consecutive years, but other universities in the top five have seen shifts in their rankings," wrote THE on its website, as quoted on Monday (20/11/2023).

Stanford University climbed to second place, displacing Harvard University, which fell to fourth place. The US university achieved a total score of 98 points.

Stanford's scores were: teaching (99 points); research environment (97.8 points); research quality (99.6 points); industry (100 points); and international outlook (87 points).

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) followed in third place, climbing two places from the 2023 ranking. It achieved a total score of 97.9 points.

The US university's scores were: teaching (98.6 points); research environment (96.2 points); research quality (99.7 points); industry (100 points); and international outlook (93.8 points).

Harvard University and the University of Cambridge occupied fourth and fifth places, with total scores of 97.8 and 97.5 points respectively.

The top ten was completed by Princeton University, the California Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University.

The THE's WUR 2024 includes 1,904 universities across 108 countries and regions. The assessment methodology uses the new WUR 3.0, encompassing 18 calibrated performance indicators measuring institutional performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

This year's ranking analyzed over 134 million citations across 16.5 million research publications and included survey responses from 68,402 researchers worldwide. Overall, THE collected 411,789 data points from 2,673 institutions that submitted data.

(See also: [10 Best Universities in the World 2024 According to QS, Is Your Dream Campus There?])