Double win for London as city tops global university rankings and overseas student rules are reversed

12 September 2019

Rankings announced on the same day as foreign student immigration rules are reversed, allowing international students to stay on for two years in the UK

Last night, the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings revealed that four universities in London are listed in the top 40 – more than any other city in the world.

The news comes as the government introduces a two-year post-study work visa for international students, allowing overseas graduates a significantly longer period of time to find work after their studies.

Study London, the Mayor’s official university guide has hailed London’s performance in the rankings and the announcement of the new visa rules as a ‘tremendous boost’ for London’s higher education sector.

Lalage Clay, Director, Education and Talent at London & Partners, the Mayor of London's official promotional agency and home of Study London said: “On behalf of the world-leading institutions of our city, we are delighted to be performing so highly once again at such a pivotal moment for higher education in the UK.

“This announcement from government is a tremendous boost for the UK capital, which will further enrich London’s post-study offer for international students and provide exciting opportunities for employers here. Our institutions are committed to attracting and nurturing bright young minds from all over the world, who will go on to become global ambassadors for our city.”

The UK capital has five universities in the global top 200, cementing London’s reputation as one of the best cities in the world for higher education. These are:

Imperial College London (10)
University College London (15)
London School of Economics and Political Science (27)
King’s College London (36)
Queen Mary University of London (110)

Phil Baty, Times Higher Education Chief Knowledge Officer, said: “This new data analysis, based on a study of literally millions of data points, demonstrates powerfully that London is a world leading centre for outstanding teaching and research. It has an extraordinary concentration of world-class research universities, creating an ecosystem that draws in diverse talent from all over the world that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

In July of this year, London was named as the world’s best city for students, according to the QS Best Student Cities Ranking, by global education consultancy QS Quacquarelli Symonds. London beat international cities Tokyo (2nd) and Melbourne (3rd) to first place for the second consecutive year.

For further information on studying in London visit www.studylondon.ac.uk or www.studylondon.cn

Notes to editors

For more information, country-specific releases and quotes or to arrange advance interviews, please contact: communications@timeshighereducation.com.
Full results will be published online at https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/world-ranking when the embargo (above) lifts.
You can follow news at @THEworldunirank and @timeshighered and the hashtag #THEUniRankings or via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/THEworldunirank 
The THE World University Rankings 2020 includes a total 1,396 institutions across 92 countries and regions (up from 1,258 universities across 86 territories last year). The top 1,000 is published in print, but the full listing is made available online
Full 2020 World University Rankings methodology is available here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/methodology-world-university-rankings-2020

About Times Higher Education

THE is the world’s most authoritative source of data, analysis and information on higher education, with five decades’ experience dedicated to the field: www.timeshighereducation.com

About the THE World University Rankings:

THE World University Rankings is the definitive list of the top universities globally:

The only global university performance table to judge research-intensive universities across each of their core missions: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research influence); industry income (knowledge transfer); and international outlook (staff, students, research)
13 carefully calibrated performance indicators used to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons – trusted globally by students and their families, academics, university leaders, industry and governments
Independently audited by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Methodology based on more than a decade of experience, following more than a year of open consultation across the global higher education community and with the detailed expert input of more than 50 leading HE and data advisors globally
The THE World University Rankings are drawn from THE’s database of university performance metrics, with over 170 separate data points on each of the world’s leading research universities and two global surveys of senior, published scholars from our annual reputation survey: with more than 21,000 responses adding 250,000 items of data. Care is taken to ensure balance across all disciplines, with a proportionate number of responses from the arts, humanities and social sciences
Research excellence is assessed through the examination of more than 12.8 million publications (journal articles, article reviews, conference proceedings, books and book chapters) and 77.4 million citations, taking full account of the major variations in publication volumes and citation counts across disciplines, with over 330 global subject-level benchmarks.

2020 global top 200

University	Country/Region	2020 Ranking	2019 Ranking
University of Oxford	United Kingdom	1	1
California Institute of Technology	United States	2	5
University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	3	2
Stanford University	United States	4	3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States	5	4
Princeton University	United States	6	7
Harvard University	United States	7	6
Yale University	United States	8	8
University of Chicago	United States	9	10
Imperial College London	United Kingdom	10	9
University of Pennsylvania	United States	11	=12
Johns Hopkins University	United States	12	=12
University of California, Berkeley	United States	=13	15
ETH Zurich	Switzerland	=13	11
UCL	United Kingdom	15	14
Columbia University	United States	16	16
University of California, Los Angeles	United States	17	17
University of Toronto	Canada	18	21
Cornell University	United States	19	19
Duke University	United States	20	18
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States	21	20
Northwestern University	United States	22	25
Tsinghua University	China	23	22
Peking University	China	24	31
National University of Singapore	Singapore	25	23
University of Washington	United States	26	28
Carnegie Mellon University	United States	=27	24
London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom	=27	26
New York University	United States	29	27
University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom	30	29
University of California, San Diego	United States	31	30
LMU Munich	Germany	=32	=32
University of Melbourne	Australia	=32	=32
University of British Columbia	Canada	34	37
University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	35	36
King’s College London	United Kingdom	=36	38
The University of Tokyo	Japan	=36	42
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland	=38	35
Georgia Institute of Technology	United States	=38	34
University of Texas at Austin	United States	=38	39
Karolinska Institute	Sweden	41	40
McGill University	Canada	42	=44
Technical University of Munich	Germany	43	=44
Heidelberg University	Germany	44	47
KU Leuven	Belgium	=45	48
Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France	=45	41
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	47	41
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States	=48	50
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore	=48	51
Australian National University	Australia	50	49
University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States	51	43
Washington University in St Louis	United States	52	54
Brown University	United States	53	53
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States	54	56
University of California, Davis	United States	=55	=59
University of Manchester	United Kingdom	=55	57
University of California, Santa Barbara	United States	=57	52
Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	=57	53
Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands	59	=59
University of Sydney	Australia	60	=59
Boston University	United States	61	=74
University of Amsterdam	Netherlands	=62	62
University of Southern California	United States	=62	66
Seoul National University	South Korea	64	63
Kyoto University	Japan	65	65
University of Queensland	Australia	66	69
Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	=67	58
Leiden University	Netherlands	=67	68
Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands	69	70
Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States	70	=71
UNSW Sydney	Australia	71	=96
McMaster University	Canada	72	77
University of Groningen	Netherlands	73	=79
Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany	74	67
Monash University	Australia	=75	=84
Utrecht University	Netherlands	=75	=74
University of Warwick	United Kingdom	77	=79
Penn State (Main campus)	United States	78	81
University of Minnesota	United States	79	=71
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin	Germany	=80	=90
Emory University	United States	=80	=84
University of Science and Technology of China	China	=80	=93
Sorbonne University	France	=80	73
Michigan State University	United States	84	=93
University of Montreal	Canada	85	=90
University of Freiburg	Germany	86	76
University of Bristol	United Kingdom	87	78
Purdue University West Lafayette	United States	88	64
Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea	89	=82
University of Zurich	Switzerland	90	=90
University of Maryland, College Park	United States	=91	=82
University of Tübingen	Germany	=91	89
École Polytechnique	France	93	108
University of Basel	Switzerland	=94	103
Dartmouth College	United States	=94	=99
University of California, Irvine	United States	=96	=96
University of Helsinki	Finland	=96	=99
Lund University	Sweden	=96	98
University of Glasgow	United Kingdom	=99	=93
RWTH Aachen University	Germany	=99	=87
University of Copenhagen	Denmark	101	=116
Georgetown University	United States	=102	109
Uppsala University	Sweden	=102	=87
University of Arizona	United States	104	=159
University of Bonn	Germany	=105	=110
Rice University	United States	=105	86
University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States	=107	107
Zhejiang University	China	=107	101
Fudan University	China	109	104
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea	=110	102
Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom	=110	130
University of Birmingham	United Kingdom	112	=116
University of Bern	Switzerland	=113	=110
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States	=113	=110
Aarhus University	Denmark	115	=123
Vanderbilt University	United States	116	=121
Free University of Berlin	Germany	=117	104
University of Sheffield	United Kingdom	=117	106
Case Western Reserve University	United States	119	=132
University of Adelaide	Australia	=120	=135
National Taiwan University	Taiwan	=120	170
University of Southampton	United Kingdom	122	118
Ghent University	Belgium	123	=143
University of Colorado Boulder	United States	124	=114
University of Göttingen	Germany	125	=123
City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	126	=110
Maastricht University	Netherlands	127	=128
Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands	=128	=123
University of York	United Kingdom	=128	119
University of Paris	France	130	NR
University of Oslo	Norway	=131	=121
University of Western Australia	Australia	=131	134
Durham University	United Kingdom	133	=114
Indiana University	United States	=134	=146
University of Vienna	Austria	=134	=143
University of Alberta	Canada	=136	=132
University of Cape Town	South Africa	=136	=156
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands	138	166
Lancaster University	United Kingdom	=139	=146
Tufts University	United States	=139	152
University of Ottawa	Canada	=141	=176
Ulm University	Germany	=141	=149
Pompeu Fabra University	Spain	143	=135
University of Geneva	Switzerland	=144	=135
Nanjing University	China	=144	134
University of Exeter	United Kingdom	=146	141
Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea	=146	142
University of Sussex	United Kingdom	=146	=161
University of Hamburg	Germany	=149	=135
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy	=149	=153
Technical University of Berlin	Germany	=149	131
Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium	=152	=128
University of Nottingham	United Kingdom	=152	=149
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa	Italy	=152	=161
Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States	=155	=123
University of Leeds	United Kingdom	=155	=153
Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain	=157	145
University of Cologne	Germany	=157	=146
University of Mannheim	Germany	=157	=123
University of Notre Dame	United States	=157	173
Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China	=157	189
TU Dresden	Germany	=157	151
University of Würzburg	Germany	163	=159
Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland	164	120
University of Liverpool	United Kingdom	165	=181
Bielefeld University	Germany	=166	201–250
University of Leicester	United Kingdom	=166	=167
University of Aberdeen	United Kingdom	=168	158
University of Bologna	Italy	=168	180
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States	=168	=176
Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong	171	159
University of Alabama at Birmingham	United States	172	179
Northeastern University	United States	=173	=184
University of Rochester	United States	=173	=163
University of Florida	United States	=175	=156
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany	=175	=135
Stockholm University	Sweden	=175	=153
Texas A&M University	United States	178	=171
University of Auckland	New Zealand	=179	201–250
University of California, Santa Cruz	United States	=179	=167
Korea University	South Korea	=179	198
Queensland University of Technology	Australia	=179	201–250
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany	183	175
Aalto University	Finland	=184	=181
Technical University of Denmark	Denmark	=184	=163
Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands	=186	=167
University of Gothenburg	Sweden	=186	201–250
Télécom Paris	France	188	NR
Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russian Federation	=189	=199
University of Münster	Germany	=189	=184
Tel Aviv University	Israel	=189	201–250
University of East Anglia	United Kingdom	192	=190
University of Canberra	Australia	193	251–300
University of Duisburg-Essen	Germany	=194	=190
University of Technology Sydney	Australia	=194	196
University of the Witwatersrand	South Africa	=194	201–250
Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea	197	201–250
University of Antwerp	Belgium	=198	201–250
Cardiff University	United Kingdom	=198	=187
George Washington University	United States	=198	=181
University of Lausanne	Switzerland	=198	=176
University of St Andrews	United Kingdom	=198	165

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