Times Higher Education (THE) has released its prestigious World University Rankings 2018, with Oxford University claiming the top spot with an overall score of 94.3. THE’s university rankings are much respected across the global education industry and a common reference point for academicians, parents and students alike.
In the 2018 ranking, European institutions occupy half of the top 200 places, and while US and British universities made away with most of the top 10 spots, only four Pakistani universities managed to secure their names amid the top 1,000 universities in the world.
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The highest ranked Pakistani university in the list is Quaid-e-Azam University. The institute is among universities that fall in the 401-500 band. The placement is an individual improvement for the university that found itself in the 601-800 band of the ranking in 2017.
The next best Pakistani university among the top 1,000 is COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, placed in the 601-800 (same as 2017) band of the global rankings. But despite improvements in scores for citations, research and international outlook, COMSATS failed to move into a higher band of the ranking.
National University of Science and Technology (NUST) is also placed in the 601-800 band of the ranking, while University of Agriculture Faisalabad is placed in the 801-1000 band. Other notable mentions include Bahauddin Zakaraiya University (BZU), Government College Lahore University (GCU) University of Lahore, University of Peshawar, PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi and University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS). However, all of the above six institutes fall in the 1000+ band of the 2018 ranking.
According to THE, the top 10 universities in the world are:
1 University of Oxford
2 University of Cambridge
3 California Institute of Technology
3 Stanford University
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 Harvard University
7 Princeton University
8 Imperial College London
9 University of Chicago
10 ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
10 University of Pennsylvania