These seven Russell Group universities just got named as the best in the world right now

Your bog standard Russell Group uni that you just managed to scrape the A-Levels for and you only picked because it has a good night out might rank as one of the best universities in the UK but what about when you take into account unis from the rest of the PLANET?

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Ranking has just been released and it names the best universities on the planet. Seven UK unis made the cut, making the UK the country with the second most unis to feature in the top 20, following (quite far) behind The US.

The ranking is based on the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey of 38,796 “experienced and published” lecturers who are asked to name the universities that are the best in their field. Unis are then measured on quality of teaching, research, number of students per staff and many other factors.

So here are the UK Russell Group universities that made the cut for the top 50 universities in the world:

46. King’s College London

Just scraping into the 50 best universities worldwide, King’s College London ranked at 46th in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Ranking. It was given an overall score of 7.7.

 40. London School of Economics

LSE is always at the top end of UK uni rankings, but it comes in at 40th best in the world. It has an overall score of 8.1 and a teaching score of 6.4 so has stayed at the same spot as last year.

30. University of Edinburgh

The only Scottish uni to make the cut, Edinburgh is at 30. Edi got an overall score of 9.8 and a teaching score of 8.8. It stayed at the same place as last year’s World Rankings.

25. University College London

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With an overall score of 14.2 and a teaching score of 12.2, UCL was named the 25th best university in the whole world. It remains in the same spot as last year’s rankings

14. Imperial College London

Just behind the California Institute of Technology, Imperial is the 14th-best university on the planet and the elite of all the London universities. It achieved an overall score of 23.6 and a teaching score of 20.3.

5. University of Cambridge

Forever just losing out to its rival Oxford, Cambridge is officially the fifth-best university in the world. Cambridge stays in the same spot as last year giving it an overall score of 77.6 and a teaching score of 95.8.

4. University of Oxford

And no prizes for guessing this one, the University of Oxford is the UK’s best university in the World Rankings. It was given an overall score of 80.5, a research score of 81.1 and a teaching score of 78.7. Oxford has remained at number four in the world in these rankings since 2022. It was also given a very good staff-to-student ratio of 10:9.

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