2023 World University Rankings Times Higher Education

Do you want to study abroad but you aren’t sure which universities are good for your area of study? Don’t worry because the  Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 has you covered! Get your pen and paper ready to make your application shortlist!

What It Is

The Times group publishes a list of 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest, most diverse and most cited university rankings to date.

How They Do It

They use 13 performance indicators covering teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook to rank these universities. The weightage given to each indicator is as follows. 

• Teaching (the learning environment) – 30%
• Research (volume, income, and reputation) – 30%
• Citations (research influence) – 30%
• International outlook (staff, students, and research) – 7.5%
• Industry income (knowledge transfer) – 2.5%

Results

So far, countries like the US, UK, and Australia have dominated the ranking table. The US and UK are the only countries to have their universities ranked among the top 10 with 7 universities belonging to the US and  3 to the UK. While the UK’s universities took the number 1, 3, and 10 spots, with the University of Oxford taking the crown, the rest were all US universities. It’s worthwhile to note that three Asian universities (2 from China and 1 from Singapore) made the top 20. 

Here’s the list of the Times top 10 universities in the world and their scores.

Top Countries with the Most Number of Universities Under 200

The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remains in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumps from joint fifth last year to joint third. Harvard tops the teaching pillar, while Oxford leads the research pillar. 

The US is the most-represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58).

The highest new entry is Italy’s Humanitas University, ranked in the 201-250 bracket.

In 2023, Mainland China has the fourth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (11, compared with 10 last year), having overtaken Australia, which has dropped to fifth (joint with the Netherlands). 

Five countries entered the ranking for the first time – all of them in Africa (Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Mauritius).

Countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada have always dominated the ranking table with the most number of universities under 200. 

In 2020, while countries like the US, UK, and Germany showcased the same or lesser number of universities than 2019, Australia added 2 more universities in the under 200 ranking. 

While the number of universities under 200 kept declining between 2016 and 2020 for both the US and UK, Australia’s universities kept improving. It is the only country from the table to depict strong performance whilst improving in all the metrics. 

On the other hand, Germany has improved in the long-term over the course of 2016-2020. Canadian universities have also shown quite an improvement between 2016-2020 with all its 7 universities jumping up in their ranks. 

Are you interested in applying to any of these universities or need help deciding which ones are the right fit for you, eligibility criteria, admission procedures, tuition fees, scholarships and more? 

Sign up with Ubergrad or, feel free to contact our student support team, for any assistance. 

Don’t forget to check or contact the individual university websites and departments for the latest information on tuition fees, scholarships, deadlines and application procedures, as these are updated all the time. 

Now that you have checked out Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023, do check out our analysis on QS World University Rankings as well. Read more about top 5 universities in the UK and popular UK scholarship programs. You can also read all about why Indian students are pursuing their Masters in Germany, another country that performed well on the Times World University Rankings 2023.