Today, Times Higher Education released their World Reputation Rankings 2016.
The results of the reputation league are based on the judgement and opinion of academic opinion through a selection of invitation-only individuals whose views are held in high esteem.
Of the top ten (Figure 1), only two – the University of Cambridge (ranked 4, falling from 2nd place last year) and the University of Oxford (ranked 5, falling from 3rd place last year) – were from the UK, with the remaining 8 held by US institutions. This has been the case since the rankings began in 2011.
In the top 20, two Asian universities are represented, the University of Tokyo, Japan (ranked 12) and the Tsinghua University, China (ranked 18). The University of Tokyo has declined from 8th position since 2011, while Tsinghua University has made a remarkable climb from 30th position in 2012. Only one university from mainland Europe (ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) secured 19th position, which has a history of moving up and down in the charts.
Figure 1: THE World Reputation Rankings 2016 Source: THE, 2016
Figure 2 below shows the results from the World University Rankings 2015-16, to explore comparisons between the two results. For example, Harvard University – ranked in first position in terms of reputation since the record began in 2011 – secured 6th position in the World University Rankings.
Figure 2: THE World University Rankings 2015-16. Source: THE