Oxford, which educated four of the last six British prime ministers, ousted its U.S. rival after its research funding rose 10 percent and overall funding rose to 1.4 billion pounds ($1.83 billion), while the impact of its research increased, said Phil Baty, editor of the rankings. Stanford University is ranked third, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fifth, Harvard sixth, Princeton seventh and the University of California, Berkeley and University of Chicago at tenth equal. But St Andrews university in Scotland and Sheffield university fell out of the top 100. Southern European countries such as Spain and Italy did less well due to underfunding and problems recruiting good staff, Baty said. Peking University rose to 29th place from 42, and Tsinghua ranked 35, up from 47th last year.

Source: Sunday Times September 22, 2016 10:52 UTC