Energy News Monitoring

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are published annually by the Times Higher Education (THE) magazine. The rankings were originally published in cooperation with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and later Thomson Reuters. In 2014 the magazine teamed up with Dutch publisher Elsevier to compile the rankings. The publication consists of the world's overall, subject, and reputation rankings, together with three regional league tables, Asia, Latin America, and BRICS & Emerging Economies which are generated by different weightings.

The metrics consist of five parameters: Teaching; Research; Citations; International outlook; and Industry income. For this purpose, the most recent Academic Reputation Survey analysed the perceived prestige of institutions in teaching and research and combined the 2020 data with the 2019 survey. For the complete rankings, please visit the homepage of Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The pandemic has been a challenging situation for many institutions of higher education and it will take time for the sector to recover from it. Several US universities have either closed or partnered with other institutions, and also about a dozen UK universities are estimated to face pecuniary problems in the long run as a result of the crisis and in particular reduced tuition fee income as fewer international students will enrol. At the same time, many universities have managed to further improve their image, especially those conducting research on vaccines and coronavirus treatments, including the University of Oxford or the Imperial College London, for example, which have either developed or are currently developing a COVID vaccine.

The University of Oxford has been at the top of the rankings for the fifth consecutive year. Oxford is one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world and second oldest surviving university worldwide. The university is associated with 11 winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, five in physics and 16 in medicine. Important Oxford alumni and scientists include Tim Berners-Lee, Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins. Oxford also hosts the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, specialising in advanced research into the economics and politics of international energy in oil, gas and electricity markets as well as strategies for the energy transition. The 2^nd and 3^rd places are occupied by Stanford University and Harvard University. Stanford University is renowned for its excellent scientific achievements in renewable fuels. Currently, one of the most important fields of research is the development of hydrogen fuels and catalysts for the water splitting reaction to produce the same. Places four and five are taken by the California Institute of Technology (Caltec) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In general, US universities have achieved an unprecedented result this year, occupying eight places in the top 10.

Imperial College London, meanwhile, has secured 11^th position. Apart from having achieved worldwide recognition for its outstanding research on COVID and the development of a COVID vaccine, which will soon be launched onto the market to help fight the pandemic, the institution is also home several energy research facilities looking into the processes of thermodynamics, fluid flow, heat transfer, as well as their applications to devices and systems for energy recovery, conversion and storage. Mainland China’s Tsinghua University is the first Asian university to enter the top 20 on 20^th position.

Moreover, there are 141 first-time entrants in the rankings this year, led by France’s recently merged Paris-Saclay University (joint 178^th). India boasts the highest number of new entries (14) and also the greatest number of ranked institutions (63).

All in all, the top 20 positions are almost entirely occupied by US universities (14 spots). Also, four UK institutions can be found, as well as one Canadian and one Swiss university. China with Tsinghua University ties in 20^th place with the United States (Duke University).