US and UK lead world ranking for universities
LISBETH KIRK
28.10.2005 @ 09:50 CET
American universities have once again shown a striking lead in the academic world, with 12 universities ranked among the 20 best in the world.
By contrast, European universities featured poorly in the global ranking of academic institutions including only four British and one French university in the top-20 league, published by the UK Times newspaper's Higher Education Supplement.
Only five European universities in the top-20 league - four British and one French (Photo: European Commission)
One Australian, one Chinese and one Japanese university also featured in the Times Higher's 2005 World University Rankings (THES), which is based on opinions from 2,375 academics from across the globe.
The best university in the world is still Harvard University in the US followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But two British universities, Cambridge and Oxford, came in third and fourth place, up from sixth and fifth respectively last year.
The French Ecole Polytechnique comes in at number ten on the list, being the only non-British European university in the top 20.
Times Higher ranked the UK second to the US overall.
Of the 200 top universities world wide, the UK is home to 24. In comparison, the US has 54 while Australia took third place with 17.
The Netherlands is continental Europe's best education nation, with ten universities in the top 200 list, ahead of France and Germany with just nine each.
The world's top 200 universities are placed in 31 countries.
EU leaders at an informal summit near London on Thursday (27 October) indicated they were very much aware that high academic standards are key to future progress.
They agreed that the bloc should do more to boost research and innovation and support European universities.
"Our proposal is that we task the Commission on coming back and reporting to the European Council next year on the challenge facing European universities, how we compete with the US," British prime minister and current president of the EU Tony Blair said, when addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this week.
