Last month, this newsletter reported on the 2018 edition of the Times Higher Ed global ranking and on the MBA ranking of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). In the present edition, we are presenting some results of the World University Rankings 2018 of the same company. Times Higher Ed and QS had produced a joint global ranking from 2004 to 2009, but then ‘divorced’ and started to produce separate rankings. 

The 2018 edition of the QS World University Ranking is led by MIT, for the sixth time running. The top ten are made up of five US (MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech and the University of Chicago) and four UK universities (Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Imperia College), as well as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH), the highest ranked continental European university (rank 10).  Given the size of the country, Switzerland is well represented with four universities among the top 100. Next to ETH, these are the second Federal University EPFL in Lausanne, and the cantonal universities of Zurich and Geneva. 

Overall, 26 of the top 100 are US universities, followed by the UK (16). 22 Asian universities are in the first 100. 11 of them are from the Chinas, amongst them four from Hong Kong and 1 from Taiwan. It is remarkable that two universities in Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and the NUS occupy the top Asian places (11 and 15). Europe as a whole has 30 universities in the top 100. Latin America is represented only by one (Buenos Aires) and no African institution can be found in the top 100. Oceania (Asia Pacific) has 6 universities, mainly in Australia.

The picture differs somewhat, though not dramatically, from that of the Times Higher Ed ranking, which is most likely due to slightly different methodologies. 

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