Oxford is officially the best university in the world, according to Times Higher Education

The University of Oxford has been named the best university in the world, according to the Times Higher Education World Rankings.

The rankings released today, sees Oxford beating rivals Cambridge to the top spot, as well as American universities, MIT and Harvard. Three British Universities- Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial were rated as part of the ten best in the world. Seven universities were from America, with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich being the only other European university to make the top 10. 

The rankings rate universities on five key indicators: the learning environment, the volume, income and reputation of the institution’s research as well as the how influential its research is through the number of citations. It also looks at how well knowledge is transferred into industry and evaluates its ‘international outlook’ through staff, students and research. 

In total the UK takes 91 of the top 980 places in the ranking; 88 of these make the top 800 compared with 78 last year. It is second only to the US for the number of world-class universities featured in the top 800.

Louise Richardson, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, said there are three potential threats to its future success: lack of funding, tighter government regulations and the UK’s vote to leave the EU.

She said: “I see the biggest threats as being financial. If our academics cannot secure funding for their research they will move elsewhere. We, frankly, do not have the resources commensurate with our global position.

“We are also more tightly regulated than many of our global competitors. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that all these regulations improve the quality of what we do, and yet they are a major distraction of time and resources.”