Two UK institutions have dropped out of Times Higher Education’s academic prestige Top 100 in the face of increased competition from Asia and mainland Europe. Harvard University tops the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, published on March 15, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge — an unchanged top three from last year’s inaugural survey.

Stanford University leapfrogs its neighbour, the University of California, Berkeley, to take fourth spot, while the University of Oxford completes an elite group of six “super brands”. The US dominates the rankings, based on a worldwide poll of more than 17,500 academics, with 44 universities in the global top 100, followed by the UK with 10 institutions. However, both nations have ceded ground to universities in East Asia and continental Europe.

Meanwhile, Chinese universities have performed well, with Tsinghua University up to 30th from 35th place and Peking University rising to 38th from 43rd. The University of Hong Kong, National Taiwan University and the National University of Singapore all rose this year, while Japan has five institutions in the top 100. New entrants include the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel, University of São Paulo, Brazil, and the Middle East Technical University, Turkey.

Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities — which represents all 10 UK entries in the top 100 — suggests that the rise of other countries’ institutions reflects greater state investment in higher education. “The UK’s leading universities punch well above their weight, and their global reputation remains very strong. But we are concerned that our global competitors in the US, East Asia and Europe are pumping billions into higher education, and money really matters,” says Piatt.

According to Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education rankings, while top reputations can take many years, even centuries, to build, in today’s information-rich and interconnected world, universities cannot sit back and rely on their history. “New forces are emerging and signs of declining performance are quickly identified, shared and spread. Established reputations can be highly vulnerable. Our data provide clear evidence that in terms of prestige among academics around the world, there is the start of a power shift from the West to East,” says Baty.

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)