Global landscape

Globally, the University of Oxford retained first place in the rankings. The University of Cambridge climbed two places to second, overtaking the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University, both in third place. In terms of institution numbers, the United States continues to dominate the rankings.

When announcing the ranking result Tuesday at the World Academic Summit, Baty said they were a bit surprised to see that two British universities had seized first and second place.

"Leading universities in the UK, in London, Oxford and Cambridge have held on very well. But I think many more of the universities in England are more challenged. They are not generously funded as some of the great Chinese universities now," he said.

He expressed worries that Brexit may influence the rankings. "We have problems with Brexit and our international relationships. So Britain must avoid becoming isolated and must continue to be outward-looking and try and collaborate with all universities across the world."

In Asia, the National University of Singapore tops the ranking in this region, in 22nd place globally. Japan's flagship, the University of Tokyo, has fallen to its lowest position in the 13-year history of the table to 46th place. And three of South Korea's leading universities have declined.

Baty believes that the trend demonstrates the global higher education landscape is changing. "Other east Asian nations are feeling the competition from the rise of China. East Asian countries outside of China will need to work hard to stay stable as its neighbour soars to join the global elite."

One of the most prestigious world university ranking systems, the Times Higher Education has published the World University Rankings every year since 2004. It has 13 separate performance indicators, covering the full range of a university's core activities including teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. The 1,000 universities ranked have all been evaluated by their academic peers through a survey which draws on more than 20,000 survey responses from senior scholars from more than 140 countries and regions.