Cambridge falls to 6th in 2021 World University Rankings, whilst Oxford comes out on top

Cambridge has dropped three places from third, its lowest position since 2014


In The Times’ Higher Education World University Rankings 2021, the University of Cambridge has dropped three places and now stands at sixth, its lowest position since 2014. The University of Oxford holds the global top spot for its fifth consecutive year. In the United Kingdom, Cambridge University holds second place.

In the global rankings, Cambridge sits below Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oxford and Cambridge are the only two UK universities in the top ten, which is dominated by eight American universities, although Imperial College London is ranked 11th and University College London is 16th.

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The World University Rankings score 1527 universities from across the world on 13 “carefully calibrated performance indicators”, which are grouped into five categories: “Teaching (the learning environment), Research (volume, income and reputation), Citations (research influence), International Outlook (staff, students and research) and Industry income (knowledge transfer)”.

These categories are then weighted, with teaching, research and citations accounting for 30% of a university’s overall score, and international outlook and industry income accounting for 7.5% and 2.5% respectively.

Cambridge’s overall score in the 2021 rankings was 94.0, with its best scores in research (99.2), international outlook (95.7) and citations (95.6). Last year, in the 2020 rankings Cambridge scored 94.4 in total, with its highest score being 98.7 in research.

Featured image credit: Genevieve Holl-Allen, Times Higher Education