Oxford University is the third oldest in Europe and has been around for some 800 years
and, for the last six years in succession, it has been the top university in the world. Here
you can see the top three over the past seven years with Oxford top of the lot since 2017.
Who says so? Why the Times Higher Education team of course and you will now meet Phil Baty,
Editorial Director of World University Rankings who will tell you just how they do it.
Okay, so here is my summary of Phil s approach in a single chart. Is this ranking
accurate? Does it fairly rate the universities of the world?
Well, they have certainly been performing this function for some time and are entirely open
about how the ratings are determined. They do include all of the important considerations you
would expect and they also derive their inputs from a vast number of respondents and sources.
Is any one else doing this? Yes of course, so let s have look at the other two main players
and see how they rate Oxford in the worldwide stakes. All three tend to
use a similar approach thought their inputs and weightings vary as, of course, do their results.
Prior to 2010 Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings worked together on this task
but they are now independent. QS employs a narrower range of performance indicators and
attaches a higher weight to academic reputation. Their approach places the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology at the top and Oxford swings about over the years averaging roughly 5th place.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, also known as the Shanghai Ranking, includes indicators
relating to Nobel Laureates. It places Harvard as the top of the tree over all recent years but it
had not released figures for 2022 when this video was published. It too gives Oxford a variable
placing which averages about eighth place. Let s stick with the Times Higher Education
rating and take quick glimpse of the high flying and incredibly popular
University of Oxford which it rates as #1 of course. You can find much more detailed coverage
of the university elsewhere on my Rob s Oxford channel, but here are some highlights.
Here s a bird s eye view of central Oxford where most of the university and college buildings are
located. There s the Radcliffe Camera which to my mind forms the main symbol of Oxford and facing it
is Saint Mary the Virgin Church which is where the university spent its first few centuries.
The move to its own buildings began with the 15th century Divinity School
and was continued in the 17th with Old Schools Quad topped by the Bodleian Library
and finally completed with the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre which is where students begin
and end their stay at Oxford. Exams were originally taken in the Divinity School,
but a grand, purpose-built Examination Hall was erected in the late 19th century. The science
area commenced at around about the same time with what is now the Natural History Museum
and massive expansion has created a vast array of modern buildings behind it.
One of the most recent university buildings is the Blavatnik School of Government which is soon to
be accompanied by a new Centre for Humanities. There are also 39 colleges where students live
and attend their all important tutorials. Most of them are stunningly beautiful
as you can see in this selection. _____________________________________-
Of course Oxford may not be the top university in the world for you, that depends on many
factors including choice of subject etc. But it is a great achievement to hog the top spot
for six years running. Will it always be top? Of course not,
but it does have something which it will retain forever. Oxford is the very first university in
an English speaking country and always will be.Please don t forget to subscribe and hit
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