Geography & Countries

The World's Top Universities: THE World University Rankings 2027

Times Higher Education ranked 2,297 universities from 118 countries and territories in its World University Rankings 2027, published on September 30, 2026. These are the top 20 — led by Oxford for an 11th year running, with MIT just 0.1 points behind.

The University of Oxford in its official undergraduate video guide

Pictured: the University of Oxford, #1 in THE World University Rankings 2027 with an overall score of 97.9.

How this is ranked. Times Higher Education (THE) scores research-intensive universities on five weighted pillars: research quality (30%), teaching (29.5%), research environment (29%), international outlook (7.5%) and industry (4%). The overall score is out of 100, and an “=” marks a tie, as THE shows it. The “2026 rank” column is each university’s place in the previous edition, the World University Rankings 2026, published in October 2025.[1][2][8] Other rankings disagree. The QS World University Rankings 2027 put MIT first for a 15th straight year, with Imperial and Stanford tied for second and Oxford fourth, and the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026, which leans heavily on research output and prizes, has Harvard first, Stanford second and MIT third.[6][7]

Rank University Country Region Overall (/100) 2026 rank
1University of OxfordUnited KingdomEurope97.91
2Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)United StatesNorth America97.82
=3Princeton UniversityUnited StatesNorth America97.0=3
=3Stanford UniversityUnited StatesNorth America97.0=5
5University of CambridgeUnited KingdomEurope96.9=3
6Harvard UniversityUnited StatesNorth America96.7=5
7California Institute of Technology (Caltech)United StatesNorth America96.57
8Imperial College LondonUnited KingdomEurope95.28
=9University of California, BerkeleyUnited StatesNorth America94.39
=9Yale UniversityUnited StatesNorth America94.310
11Tsinghua UniversityChinaAsia93.912
12ETH ZurichSwitzerlandEurope93.611
13Peking UniversityChinaAsia92.813
14University of PennsylvaniaUnited StatesNorth America91.514
15National University of Singapore (NUS)SingaporeAsia91.117
16University of ChicagoUnited StatesNorth America90.715
=17Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited StatesNorth America90.316
=17University College London (UCL)United KingdomEurope90.322
19Columbia UniversityUnited StatesNorth America90.020
20University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)United StatesNorth America89.9=18

The Top 10

#1

University of Oxford, United Kingdom — 97.9

Oxford has topped THE’s table for an 11th consecutive year, but it has never been so close: its overall score of 97.9 is just 0.1 points ahead of MIT, which THE calls the slimmest margin ever between first and second place. Oxford is one of three UK universities in the 2027 top 10.[1]

#2

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States — 97.8

MIT holds second place for another year, nudging its overall score up from 97.7 to 97.8 and closing to within a tenth of a point of Oxford. It is the top-ranked US university in THE’s table, and it leads the rival QS World University Rankings 2027 outright — for a 15th straight year.[1][6]

#3 (tie)

Princeton University, United States — 97.0

Princeton keeps the joint third place it first reached in the 2026 edition, its best-ever finish, which THE put down to big improvements in its teaching and research quality scores. This year it shares third with Stanford, both on 97.0.[1][2]

#3 (tie)

Stanford University, United States — 97.0

Stanford climbs two places from joint fifth to joint third, level with Princeton on 97.0. It does well across the rival tables too: joint second in QS 2027 and second in the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026.[1][2][6][7]

#5

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom — 96.9

Cambridge slips from joint third to fifth outright, just 0.1 points behind the tied Princeton and Stanford. It is still the UK’s second-highest university in THE’s table, and fourth in the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026.[1][2][7]

#6

Harvard University, United States — 96.7

Harvard drops from joint fifth to sixth in THE’s ranking, which shows how much methodology matters: in the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026, which is built mostly on research output, citations and prizes, Harvard is first in the world again.[1][2][7]

#7

California Institute of Technology, United States — 96.5

Caltech keeps the seventh place it held in 2026. The Pasadena research university scores 96.5, within 1.4 points of Oxford, and it rounds out the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026 top 10 as well.[1][2][7]

#8

Imperial College London, United Kingdom — 95.2

Imperial keeps eighth place and is the third UK university in the top 10, alongside Oxford and Cambridge. The science, engineering, medicine and business school does even better in QS, where it ties Stanford for second in the 2027 edition.[1][2][6]

#9 (tie)

University of California, Berkeley, United States — 94.3

Berkeley is the highest-ranked public university in North America, sharing ninth place with Yale on 94.3 after finishing ninth outright last year. It ranks fifth in the ShanghaiRanking ARWU 2026.[1][2][7]

#9 (tie)

Yale University, United States — 94.3

Yale moves up from tenth to joint ninth, level with Berkeley, completing a top 10 made up entirely of seven US and three UK universities. Just behind them, Tsinghua rose to 11th, overtaking ETH Zurich, so Asia’s best university now ranks above continental Europe’s best.[1][2][5]

Universities Education Geography Countries

Sources

  1. Times Higher Education, World University Rankings 2027 (published September 30, 2026; 2,297 institutions from 118 countries and territories), via THE’s results announcement and its press release “Asia overtakes continental Europe in THE World University Rankings 2027” (Oxford first for an 11th year on 97.9, MIT 0.1 points behind on 97.8, Berkeley the top public university in North America, Tsinghua 11th, Peking 13th, NUS 15th). Overall scores and places for the full top 20 are as reproduced from THE’s table by Master Grad Schools (“Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027: Results and Analysis”) and cross-checked against other coverage (Scholarship Scanner, Your Dream School, Philstar, GKToday).
  2. Times Higher Education, World University Rankings 2026 (published October 2025): THE’s results announcement (Oxford first, MIT second, Princeton and Cambridge joint third, Harvard and Stanford joint fifth; Tsinghua 12th, Peking 13th, NUS 17th) and THE’s “Best universities in the United States 2026” table (Penn 14th, Chicago 15th, Johns Hopkins 16th, Cornell and UCLA joint 18th, Columbia 20th). Ranks 7–12 of the 2026 edition are from published summaries of THE’s top 20.
  3. Johns Hopkins University, The Hub, “Johns Hopkins No. 17 in new Times Higher Education World University Rankings” (September 30, 2026), and Imagine JHU, “Johns Hopkins No. 16 in Times Higher Education World University Rankings” (October 2025).
  4. Coverage of UCL’s joint 17th place in the 2027 edition, its first top-20 finish since the 2022 edition (Scholarship Scanner), and THE’s UCL profile (22nd in the 2026 edition).
  5. Human Resources Online, “Three Asian universities in the top 15 for the first time in World University Rankings 2027”, and Must Share News coverage of NUS’s 17th place in the 2026 edition.
  6. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, QS World University Rankings 2027 (released June 2026), via QS’s results release: MIT first for a 15th consecutive year, Imperial and Stanford joint second, Oxford fourth.
  7. ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, Academic Ranking of World Universities 2026 press release (August 15, 2026, distributed by Clarivate): Harvard 1, Stanford 2, MIT 3, Cambridge 4, Berkeley 5, Princeton 6, Oxford 7, Columbia 8, Chicago 9, Caltech 10.
  8. Times Higher Education, World University Rankings methodology, as summarized in 2027 coverage: five pillars weighted research quality 30%, teaching 29.5%, research environment 29%, international outlook 7.5% and industry 4%.