The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 includes more than 1,250 universities, making it our biggest international league table to date.

It is the only global university performance table to judge research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. 

We use 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.

This year’s list of the best universities in the world is led by the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge for the second year in a row.

Tsinghua University is now the top university in Asia, after rising eight places to 22nd, becoming the first Chinese institution to lead the continent under the current methodology (since 2011). 

China as a whole has increased its standing, driven by improvements in citation impact.